Fire at Potrero Hill homeless camp scorches nearby warehouse

A fire with flames up to 40-feet high raced through a homeless encampment Saturday in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill district, fire officials said.

The blaze engulfed the entire encampment at 15th and Carolina streets at 10:56 a.m., but firefighters were able to put the fire out within 15 minutes of arriving on the scene, said Bryan Rubenstein, a battalion chief at the San Francisco Fire Department.

The encampment was located alongside a warehouse that suffered considerable damage to an exterior wall, Rubenstein said.

Flames spread about 30 feet along the wall of the building and ignited fuel and other flammable materials that were stored just inside the building, Rubenstein said.

The industrial building was storing AT&T vehicles at the time of the fire, Rubenstein said.

Smoking materials, including a crack pipe and cigarettes, were found at the scene and determined to be the preliminary cause of the fire, Rubenstein said.

Ben Calalo, 27, lives in the area and said he was on his way back to work when he saw the flames and smoke from the other side of the building.