2020 Oakland Homeless Camp Firesdata from public records request
Oakland’s Fire Department started recording homeless camp fires with their own, separate code almost two years ago. Earlier this summer, I filed a public records request to the City of Oakland for the data for 2020 and 2021 to date. A couple hours’ worth of analysis of the 2020 data:
The department recorded 597 homeless camp fires in 2020.
More fires happen in winter than summer:
- January: 68
- February: 51
- March: 63
- April: 31
- May: 31
- June: 42
- July: 59
- August: 45
- September: 47
- October: 43
- November: 65
- December: 52
Here’s each fire mapped as a point:
And here they are as crude polygons, approximating a heat map:
The raw data from the city lists streets addresses and intersections. I geolocated first with Geloky, then by hand.
The main combined data file for 2020 is here.
Your thoughts and feedback are always welcome by e-mail.