A makeshift living room includes a sectional sofa, a recliner and a coffee table in the woods behind an East School Street mill Wednesday evening.  Call photo/Joseph B. Nadeau

By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

WOONSOCKET — A large campfire built by homeless people behind an East School Street mill drew police to the area Tuesday evening and resulted in the arrest of a man and woman at the site.

Officers were dispatched at about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday after police received a report of an open campfire burning within several hundred feet of the mill.
The officers found a site that featured a tent, tables, coolers, a large combination sofa recliner with a fold-out bed, playing cards, books and piles of debris, according to Lt. John Picard.
Police responding to the location behind Imperial Packaging on East School Street could smell smoke. They entered the heavy woods behind the mill to track down its source, according to Lt. John Picard.
The trio of patrolmen, Kenneth Marcotte, Irwin Harris and Kevin Greenough, reportedly found a fire 4 to 5 feet in diameter burning at the campsite and Linda Belanger, 47, of no permanent address, asleep on the couch nearby, Picard said.
Bernard C. Masse, 45, whose last address was listed as 119 Chestnut St., was also found at the site, police said. He allegedly began to object when the officers tried to put out the fire.
Masse had to be subdued, according to Picard, and in the process of placing him in a cruiser parked behind the mill, Belanger also became agitated and tried to stop the patrol car from leaving with Masse.
Masse was charged with a city offense of open burning and being disorderly, and Belanger was also charged with a city offense: refusing to move.
Both were held for an appearance in Municipal Court Wednesday, after which they were released pending a hearing, Picard said.
Picard said the location behind Imperial Packaging is one where police occasionally find homeless people camping.
“We run across them occasionally and periodically when we run across one of these things, we remove the people as we go,” he said.
 Many times the homeless have nowhere else to go and will on occasion return to the sites, he said.
The main concern for clearing the areas is health and safety, Picard noted. The campsite found Tuesday had no latrine facilities and the debris and trash piled around the site also posed a health concern, he said.
The fire was also a risk given its size and proximity to the mill property nearby, Picard said.
A camp found along the Blackstone River near the Main Street Bypass generated similar concerns last November when police handled a domestic disturbance at the site. The city’s Public Works Department stepped in to clear the encampment after the location became known.
One of the occupants, Albert Casavant, of no permanent address, objected to the city’s action and watched as a city front-end loader rolled over his belongings.