Vacant Building Fires Persist in Fresno, City Officials Urge Vigilance

Fresno firefighters responded to a string of vacant building fires across the city in recent months, with two serious incidents in the week before December 2, 2025. City fire officials said they have recorded 76 vacant structure fires year to date, a figure Deputy Fire Marshal Jay Tracy described as normal for this point in the year. The recent cases included a vacant house near the Tower District at College Avenue and Elizabeth Street that went up in flames on Monday morning, and a fire last Wednesday that heavily damaged the former Jeb's Blueberry Hill on Blackstone Avenue in central Fresno.

Investigators said the cause of the Tower District blaze remains under review, while the Blackstone Avenue fire is being treated as a suspected arson. Both events came after two other vacant homes burned in November, one in southwest Fresno near C and Mono Streets and another in southeast Fresno near Balch and Barton Avenues. Fresno Fire has yet to determine the cause of those earlier blazes.

The department emphasized that many vacant building fires involve human activity, intentional or not. "Most often, they are human-involved, meaning somebody could have started a fire. Not actually being malicious, but could've started, say a warming fire or something of that nature and then the fire got out of control," Tracy said. He urged residents to monitor known vacant structures and to report trespassers, adding "We do encourage the public to file a report on a structure that has someone in there that maybe shouldn't be in there that they know is to be vacant."

Beyond immediate safety and neighborhood disruption, repeated vacant structure fires carry broader policy implications for Fresno. Fire response and investigation divert emergency resources, raise cleanup and redevelopment costs, and can depress property values in surrounding blocks. Responsibility often falls to property owners, code enforcement, and elected officials who set budgets for prevention, enforcement and blight remediation. "We are seeing about the normal amount of vacant structure fires a year to date. We've had 76," Tracy noted, as the fire department said it does not expect an increase in such incidents as the year closes out.

For neighbors and community groups the incidents underscore the importance of civic engagement. Residents who document and report trespassing or unsecured vacant buildings can prompt quicker enforcement actions. Local policy choices at city council and county supervisor levels will determine funding for fire prevention, code enforcement and programs that could reduce the recurrence of dangerous vacant building fires.