On Aug. 20, the Austin Fire Department responded to a fire in an abandoned building on Levander Loop, near East 7th St and Airport Blvd.
The structure fire, according to posts by the Austin Fire Department, started at around 6:00 a.m and was upgraded to a two-alarm fire at 6:30 a.m.
The crews fighting the fire identified a second fire inside the roof but said that there were no occupants found inside the structure.
Nomadik, an Austin-based company that is using artificial intelligence and machine-learning to map all homeless camps in the Austin-area, posted at the time, “we actually found this one ourselves a while ago, the industrial building is abandoned and has people camping in and around it.”
While it has not been confirmed by law enforcement or the city, Nomadik’s outreach director Dave Tramonte suspects this fire could have been started by homeless individuals.
According to Nomadik’s data, there are two homeless camps directly next to the property that have an estimated ten people living there.
“In the past, many abandoned properties acted as what I like to call ‘drug cafés,’” said Dave Tramonte. “This is where the buildings are used for the world of drugs and addiction. On any given day it is used for drug manufacturing, selling and usage.”
“When a batch of meth is cooked wrong or a mistake is made or more commonly objects of manufacturing are left behind, there are many instances where a fire quickly starts and takes over the building. A large enough fire on a hot and dry Texas summer day is the exact formula for a large structure fire or worse, a wildfire big enough to take out the surrounding community,” continued Tramonte.
Two weeks ago, KVUE reported that the city of Austin’s vacant building task force has been making progress on demolishing and cleaning up vacant buildings, as more and more fires have broken out at some abandoned structures in the city.
In response to the cause of the fires at one property at 900 Koenig Lane, Austin Fire Assistant Chief Thayer said “there was evidence on the property that there were several small encampments there.”