Tent fire draws emergency response in Boston’s Methadone Mile

One of the tents that’s sprung up on Methadone Mile caught fire early Saturday morning, drawing emergency responders to the troubled area.

A Boston Fire spokesman said the department responded to reports of a tent fire on Atkinson Street around 4 a.m. When they showed up, there was in fact a tent ablaze, but there was no one in the tent — or around it.

Boston Fire said the incident remains under investigation, and no other structures were ablaze. Boston EMS said no one was treated at the scene or transported to a hospital.

Boston Police said they too responded to the incident, which was first called in as being near the corner of Atkinson and Southampton streets — close to the Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard intersection that gives the “Mass and Cass” area its name — but ended up being more toward Atkinson and South Bay Avenue, the area tucked back toward the Nashua Street Jail and the Greater Boston Food Bank.

The Mass and Cass area, also called the city’s Methadone Mile, has increasingly become a dangerous open-air drug market, with more and more people living on the streets over the past few years, and crime following. This summer was particularly bad, and locals and advocates have said they’ve seen the number of permanent residents in tents skyrocket from a dozen to more than a hundred starting in August.

Advocates have worried that the “tent city” that’s sprung up is boosting crime in the area, where open-air drug use is regularly visible and there have been multiple slayings this year.

The deteriorating conditions in the area — and the often–controversial city responses — have made plans for the Mile a major issue throughout the ongoing mayoral campaign. About a month ago, the city was planning something of a cleanup effort, which they then didn’t do as the ACLU threatened legal action.