Atlanta city workers inspect homeless encampment near site of bridge fire

ATLANTA — Atlanta city workers, Georgia Department of Transportation workers and police came out to inspect a homeless encampment Wednesday near where a brushfire shut down a major highway for several hours over the weekend.

The city did not say why those workers were there.

Channel 2′s Tom Jones was at the camp when the team arrived because he wanted to talk to people who lived at these encampments about the fires some of them have admitted to starting.

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“Why do you use fire? What do you use it for?” Jones asked Michaela Dunham-Brown. “Mostly for like to heat it up real fast or for cooking,” she responded.

Dunham-Brown said when people in her homeless camp, which she called a tent city near Buford Highway and Lenox Road, set a fire they are careful that it doesn’t get out of control.

“We watch it. You can see it through the tent and everything,” she added.

Atlanta firefighters say a fire under the Buford Highway bridge near a separate homeless encampment Sunday morning did get out of control. The brushfire forced crews to shut down all lanes for several hours.

It brought back memories from 2017 when a massive fire caused Interstate 85 near the Buford-Spring connector to collapse, which was shut down for more than a month.

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An investigation determined a man without permanent housing ignited the flames after he set a chair on fire.

There have been several other fires in the area since.

Jones wanted to ask the councilman for the area what the city was doing about all of this, but he said he was unavailable.

While Jones was at the encampment, a group of Atlanta workers, along with Atlanta police and GDOT workers arrived to inspect the area.

They took pictures and pointed out all the debris under the bridge.

The city did not respond when we asked why they were there.

One man who lives in the encampment wanted people to know they’re not the problem.

“This area in particular. We don’t create fires,” he said.

Channel 2 Action News is going to continue to work to find out how the city plans to address this issue.

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