Community Supports Homeless Veteran After Being Set on Fire

Ventura Residents Rally Around Homeless Veteran Lit on Fire at Beach Amid Search for Assailants
KTLA News
BY TRACY BLOOM AND SARA WELCH
JANUARY 20, 2015

Those who knew Frazier believed he was a veteran who moved from New Mexico about six months ago and had been staying at the beach ever since.

Messages of support and encouragement have been left at the spot where the 58-year-old man was brutally attacked on Jan. 17, 2015. (Credit: KTLA)

The life of a homeless man who suffered serious burns when he was doused in lighter fluid and set on fire as he slept on a Ventura beach over the weekend was saved by the quick-thinking actions of a passerby, who extinguished the flames before calling for help.

The unidentified man happened to be near Pierpont Beach at South Seaward Avenue around 11 p.m. Sunday when 58-year-old John Frazier was attacked by three men, according to a news release from the Ventura Police Department. He dialed 911 after putting out the blaze.

Doug Kern walked by moments after the man used sand to put out the fire, which has engulfed Frazier in flames of up to 6-feet high.
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