As Homeowners Move On, Fire Moves In

"The best way to prevent vacant building fires is to prevent vacant buildings," the NFPA concluded.

That is easier said then done.

Fire complicates the calculus for officials in cities trying to stabilize neighborhoods pocked with abandoned homes.

Firefighters increasingly confront dangerous blazes where the property is not worth saving and often the only lives endangered are their own.

Abandoned homes offer shelter to drug users and gangs, which can make them magnets for fire.

And then there are people like Gordon Yoesting, looking for a place to sleep.

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By the time Yoesting and 1430 Jane found each other, the neighborhood where both were raised was crumbling.

Flint's Eastside was built fast after World War I as a working man's neighborhood, its small lots and modest woodframes within walking distance of the massive Buick plant.