Residents of Mobile Home Park On Edge After Dangerous Fire Lit In Fire Pit, Allegedly By Homeless Couple

PACIFIC PALISADES (CBSLA) - On Tuesday night, residents of the Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Park woke up to a dangerously large fire burning in a pit in the middle of their complex.

"I see a figure running from the shed, coming back here with trash and throwing it on, and I was like, oh man, this ain't, this ain't normal," one resident of the mobile home park told CBSLA's Lesley Marin. "I open up the gate and see about six feet of flames shooting out of this thing."

Residents believe the fire was started intentionally by a homeless couple. Although it was burning in the fire pit, they say the couple also got into the pool shed and used chemicals to fuel flames high into the air, creating a very dangerous situation.

"These houses are so close together. The way that they're built is different, so one of these houses catches on fire and we're looking at devastation here," Jon Brown, a Pacific Palisades resident, said.

According to a recent investigation, 54% of fire the Los Angeles Fire Department responds to are started by people experiencing homelessness.

Bowl Mobile Home Park also sits across the street from Will Rogers State Beach, one of the sites where City Councilman Mike Bonin has proposed building a temporary homeless shelter.

"These transients that came in last night are representation of what we think we would get more of," one person said.

"Having people just show up, finding them asleep in your car port, on your porches defecating...," another resident added.

While a lot of residents expressed their concerns about the potential shelter, one man did speak in favor of proposal.

One thing that everyone appeared to agree on was that they blame the city, not the people living on the streets, for the growing homelessness crisis.

"This isn't an issue that I am anti-homeless people. I'm very pro-people that are hurting, broken and really don't know what's going on."

Brown started a petition to stop the potential homeless shelter from going in, which already has 31,000 signatures.

The city said that right now it is only conducting a feasibility study on the proposal. In response to similar past issues, Councilman Bonin has said that there are no ideal places on the Westside, but that that doesn't reduce the urgency or need to act.