Fed-up condo owners along Atlanta's Buford Spring Connector say they are running out of patience after a string of fires in the homeless camps tucked into the woods beside I-85 northbound.
Neighbors in the Cedar Chase condominium complex say there have been at least three fires in the past six months, close enough to backyards and nearby parks that families with young children worry about smoke, drifting ash, and what happens if one of those blazes gets out of hand.
Residents Demand Action
At a recent neighborhood gathering, residents traded stories of watching flames jump through the trees just beyond their fences. Parents said they keep one eye on the kids at the nearby park and the other on the tree line, nervous that the next flare-up could spread to homes or shut down the highway.
The city, for its part, says it has secured permission from property owners to clear some of the encampment areas and notes that individual landowners are responsible for maintaining their own property, according to WSB-TV.
Risk Is Real: A Local Precedent
Residents say their concerns are not hypothetical. They point straight to the 2017 I-85 bridge fire and partial collapse as proof that what starts as a small blaze under or near a highway can spiral into a full-blown infrastructure crisis.
That incident forced drivers into long detours and cost taxpayers millions of dollars to repair, a reminder of how vulnerable major roadways are to fire, as reported by the Atlanta Journal‑Constitution.
City Policy After a Fatal Sweep
Layered over the fire fears is a newer, tragic chapter in the city’s approach to clearing encampments. In January 2025, a man named Cornelius Taylor died during a city-led sweep, an event that prompted the Atlanta City Council to ban the use of heavy equipment for cleanups and to create a homelessness task force.
That policy shift has made the city’s job more complicated as officials try to juggle public safety, outreach to unhoused residents and property rights, as reported by Atlanta News First.
Neighbors Demand Accountability
For Cedar Chase neighbors, what they see instead is a lot of finger-pointing and not much clarity.
"Nobody's really taking responsibility for this," resident Errin Thomas said, capturing the mood of many condo owners who feel each new fire is treated as a one-off incident rather than part of a broader problem.
Neighbor Cory Knopp put it more bluntly. "Seeing a fire in the back of the yard is not fun to watch," he said, adding that families are now thinking about evacuation plans and watching air quality instead of just enjoying their yards. Those concerns were documented by WSB-TV.
For now, Cedar Chase residents say they plan to keep pressing elected officials for a coordinated plan that pairs outreach to unhoused neighbors with safer, better organized cleanup work in the woods along the connector. City leaders, in turn, are under fresh pressure to spell out who is actually in charge and how they intend to keep a series of small camp fires from turning into Atlanta’s next highway emergency.
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