Concord Firefighters Extinguish Homeless Camp Debris Fire

CONCORD, NH — Concord firefighters and police were sent to Commercial Street on Wednesday for a fire underneath an Interstate 393 bridge.

Around 11:45 p.m., capital region dispatch received a call from someone in the area of the Friendly Kitchen about a fire under a bridge. When the firefighters arrived, they found a large pile of debris and trash on fire.

“The PD en route?,” the fire commander asked.

A dispatcher then said they would call the department.

Officers arrived and one said the fire appeared to be “piles of trash” left under the bridge along the railroad tracks. They ran checks on two people at the scene for active warrants.

While doing so, the watch commander chimed in and asked if there were “visible” no trespassing signs in the area or under the bridge. The officer said the pair arrived yesterday and no one had told them they could not camp under the bridge. The watch commander told officers campers on railroad property were subject to trespassing charges.

The pair were cleared and an officer warned them to stay off the tracks. Police cleared the scene later.

Concord firefighters used “several buckets of snow” to put out the fire, according to scanner chatter, around 12:30 a.m. and then they cleared the scene.

Homeless campers have been cleared from the area repeatedly for several years now.

Underneath this particular I-393 bridge, there have been assaults and fires, and also a massive fire, not far from the bridge, that burned brush and woods in the city's historic district, not far from the Kimball Jenkins Estate. A homeless man was also charged with setting fire to a dumpster near the bridge with a propane tank, causing an explosion in 2021.

The other I-393 bridge, on South Commercial Street, where there have also been fires, assaults, and even dead bodies found, is slated to be upgraded with lights after the city received a request from Steve Duprey.

The local developer raised the issue of extensive crimes, including sexual assault, in the immediate area. The council's public safety board held a hearing about the issue and the city is in the process of coordinating with the state to have lights installed under the bridge.

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