Suspicious fires rattle North Bay
15 small blazes on Healdsburg’s edge may have mark of arson
Posting colored flags on a charred hillside on the north side of the small Sonoma County city of Healdsburg, Cal Fire investigator Jeremy Ward examined what clues the scorched earth and brush might show about a suspicious fire, one of more than a dozen fires that briefly terrorized the city on Monday night.
All told, about 15 small fires ignited in less than two hours in an arch around the famous Wine Country town’s western outskirts, drawing a cavalry of firefighters to douse the blaze and law enforcement officers to investigate what could possibly ignite so many fires in quick succession.
Though quickly snuffed out, these fires had the mark of possible arson, scattered along a circuitous path, igniting one after the other in the dry vegetation along roadsides, said State Sen. Mike McGuire, a Healdsburg Democrat, who raised the alarm on social media Monday night for local residents to be vigilant.
“These starts are incredibly suspicious,” he told The Chronicle.
Cal Fire officials were not talking about the suspected causes of these fires, saying they hadn’t ruled out coincidence, accident or more sinister factors.
“Other than lightning, pret
ty much all fires are humancaused,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Marshall Turbeville said Tuesday, standing on Healdsburg Avenue on the north side of town while Ward marked notes on a clipboard. “We look at everything that happened and follow the scientific process.”
Firefighters from across the county rushed to the area, bringing bulldozers and water tenders to extinguish fire after fire before flames could reach any homes. The fires broke out on a night without much wind, unlike the type of crisis that occurred just three weeks ago in Lake County where a fire quickly spread into a residential area, destroying dozens of homes. But this time, no one was ordered to evacuate and no homes were lost.
The first fire was reported just after 8:10 p.m. near the Rio Lindo Academy on the south side of town. The last one, a nearly 2-acre fire on a steep road embankment at Healdsburg Avenue and Alexander Valley Road on the city’s northern edge, was extinguished by 10:30 p.m.
Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore was reading his children a bedtime story when his brother called to say there was a fire within several hundred yards of their home on Bailhache Avenue, a winding road that follows the Russian River on the south side of town.
He stepped outside, called the county’s emergency services manager and fire officials, wondering whether this was the type of crisis that fires have brought to this community before. Like other Sonoma County cities, Healdsburg has been menaced by major wildfires in recent years, most recently the Walbridge Fire, which was sparked by lightning in August 2020 and burned down into the forested communities on the western edge of town.
Gore was relieved to hear the fire was small and quickly under control. But then the reports kept coming, each from a different 911 caller.
Several miles west of Bailhache Road, flames ignited in the redwoods deep in Mill Creek canyon, close to the eastern edge of last year’s big Walbridge Fire, which burned 55,000 acres and destroyed more than 150 homes. Then dry oaks along West Dry Creek Road burst into flames. Several vegetation fires popped up along Lytton Springs Road near the Healdsburg Municipal Airport. Flames lit the grass on nearby Chiquita Road, a rural lane.
One fire had suddenly become many. Working together, Cal Fire and local agencies from Healdsburg to Cloverdale switched gears. Instead of sending the bulk of resources to one fire, they sent two engines each to check on every report of fire and call for more resources if needed.
Suddenly, flames threatened homes and commercial structures in a crescent shape around this prized area of Sonoma County Wine Country.
Ozzy and Jamie Katz were driving home from a Rosh Hashanah dinner and were stopped by the alarming sight of flames on the hill near their house on Maybee Lane. In disorienting darkness, it looked as if the whole hill was aflame. Their 9-year-old son begged them to speed away.
They left and returned about an hour later, finding their home and neighborhood intact, apart from a smoldering, smoking grass hill.
Ozzy Katz pondered the possibility that someone had intentionally lit the fires that could have taken away so much for so many people.
“There is no financial gain from lighting fires. So why?” Katz said. “It must be a crazy mental deficiency.”
Ben Nicholls, Cal Fire division chief, said most of northern Sonoma County’s firefighting force flooded the area.
They found fires churning through drought-parched vegetation but spreading slowly without one of the most fearsome factor in fires — strong, gusty wind. Crews patrolled the area throughout the night and kept watch on the fire sites.
“It was a long night for some of the firefighters,” Nicholls said.
Nicholls wouldn’t speculate whether the fires were suspicious in nature, saying they hadn’t determined any cause.
Each fire would be investigated as if it were the sole fire that night. Investigators start by examining the charred earth and vegetation to pinpoint the spot where the blaze started. Burned grasses might point in the direction a fire moves. Investigators try to follow markings on the scorched ground to the fire’s origin. They look for indications of how and where the fire moved.
Then they will look for evidence such as materials left behind, sign of accelerants, a broken power line, debris from a passing vehicle.
They had just begun that painstaking work, Nicholls said.
“Until we have the origin and cause investigations done, I would be getting ahead of myself if I was to say more,” Nicholls said.