A Thursday afternoon encampment fire claimed the lives of two dogs and displaced five people, less than a half-mile from the site of a separate encampment fire just ten days ago.

In what’s becoming a heartbreakingly frequent story, an encampment fire broke out late Thursday afternoon in West Oakland, not even a half-mile from the site of a separate encampment fire just ten days before. KGO brings us the news of a Thursday afternoon encampment fire near 34th and Wood Streets shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon, wherein five people were displaced, and two dogs perished.  

“Three RVs completely burned inside the RV lot. No reports of any human injuries. Two dogs found dead inside RV,” the Oakland Fire Department tweeted. In a subsequent tweet, they noted that “5 persons were displaced. Investigation concluded that the cause was accidental. Person in RV was burning material. Despite their efforts to contain the small fire it got out of control and consumed 2 neighboring RVs.”

The fire was visible from a distance, and multiple social media posts showed. But it’s not clear whether they were showing that fire, or a different MacArthur Maze fire happening almost simultaneously.

As KTVU’s coverage of the fire points out, “in a separate incident, a vehicle fire on surface streets caused a large plume of smoke and traffic delays on the MacArthur Maze. A vehicle accident happened at Highway 24 and Broadway about an hour before the RV fires broke out.”

There were fortunately no human fatalities in the fire, as we saw with a Glen Park encampment fire in late February. But the frequency of these fires is a concern that we will see more fatalities, if not just among the people in RVs, but possibly motorists with vision is impaired by the smoke, or because of structural issues that fires can post to the MacArthur Maze.      

Related: Late-Night Glen Park Encampment Fire Leaves One Dead, Three Critically Injured [SFist]

Image: @OaklandFireCA via Twitter