Forum to address anxiety over Russian River-area fires

An unusual spate of fires in Guerneville and the Russian River area, including two cases of possible arson that gutted an old inn and a popular health clinic, continues to fuel frustrations among some residents and merchants about the highly visible transient population that loiters and camps in the area.

Homelessness and public safety lead the agenda of a Monday night community meeting called by the Russian River Chamber of Commerce and Supervisor Efren Carrillo to address concerns that flared after the troubling series of fires - seven in 20 days. Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas and District Attorney Jill Ravitch are among officials scheduled to speak.

Chamber President Debra Johnson said she and others have been inundated by calls from worried residents. Many are placing blame on the homeless population, despite a lack of evidence as to what or who caused the fires that destroyed the Russian River Health Center and the shuttered New Dynamic Inn, which was undergoing renovations to provide housing for homeless veterans.

“What broke the camel’s back is the health center, which was such a hub in our community,” said Johnson, who is a longtime member of the clinic’s board. “That threw us into chaos. Now our homeless folks are taking the brunt of it when they’re not responsible for it.”

An infusion of new business and entrepreneurship over the past several years has filled vacant storefronts and brought new life to the river community of just over 1,000 whose economy largely relies on tourism. But that energy has come head to head with a visible and entrenched homeless population that also calls the area home. Residents describe blatant public drug deals downtown and trash from illegal encampments polluting the river waters.

Fire investigators have dug through the charred rubble of seven destroyed or damaged structures in Guerneville and the Russian River area since Dec. 17. Four were caused by faulty heaters or other accidental sources. Three are considered suspicious.

No suspects

Officials have not identified suspects in any of those three fires and they have found no clear evidence yet for how the fires started at all, Russian River Fire Protection District Chief Max Ming said.

“We haven’t found any evidence to indicate that members of the homeless population started these fires,” Ming said.

The Dec. 20 fire that engulfed the New Dynamic Inn is the clearest case of arson so far. Four fires were lit in different areas of the inn: Two fires were ignited in one room, a third fire started in another room 50 feet away and one fire was lit outside, fire officials said.

Ming said investigators have not identified an ignition source.

Investigators said that someone started the fire that destroyed the community’s health center on Dec. 26. The fire started in an unlocked exterior utility closet, but investigators do not yet know how it began, Ming said.

“We ruled out all obvious reasons,” Ming said. “We found no sign of a warming fire, no sign of accelerants, no electrical problem.”

Fire investigator Capt. Rob Cassidy told The Press Democrat in December the health center blaze was intentionally set and not a fire someone set to keep warm. Ming said he wasn’t comfortable using the term arson because although it was clearly set by a person he said they haven’t absolutely ruled out an accidental cause.

“We’ve got to go through a long checklist and rule things out,” Ming said. “They feel that it was ?human-caused, but that can be one of two things, intentional or unintentional. Our difficulty is we haven’t been able to prove intentional.”

Suspicious blaze

Ming said investigators still consider a Dec. 27 residential fire on Morningside Drive suspicious. A neighbor who reported the fire told officials he heard two people talking before he saw flames. But Ming said firefighters also are considering a space heater near where the fire appeared to have started as a possible cause.

Two fires lit at Russian River churches earlier in the year also still are considered suspicious, including a Nov. 12 blaze at old St. Catherine’s Catholic Church in Monte Rio. They are under investigation by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Ming said the totality of those fires led him to call the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the state fire marshal’s office. Two federal agents have lent assistance to local investigators, including members of a Sonoma County fire investigation task force.

Sonoma County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cecile Focha cautioned the public against making assumptions about what caused the fires while the investigation is ongoing. In order for investigators to determine a fire was arson, they must “prove intent, that it was malicious, and that is the big challenge” the sergeant said.

“Not every human- caused fire is arson,” Focha said.

Drying belongings

Just before noon Friday, Monte Rio Fire Chief Steve Baxman saw smoke rising from under the Highway 116 bridge near Guerneville and hiked down to the riverbank to investigate. He said he encountered a woman living under the bridge who had started a fire to dry her things.

Baxman said he responds to a lot of calls related to the transient population and he worries more homeless services will bring more people to the area.

“It’s tough for everybody,” Baxman said. “There’s gotta be an answer.”

Russian River Fire Protection District Board President Mark Emmett said that he and others are fed up with seeing people using drugs and loitering in the downtown plaza. Those activities also jeopardize public safety and tourism, the lifeblood for many in the community, he said.

“I’m hoping the sheriff and the district attorney and Supervisor Efren Carrillo see the emotion that the people that live here have about what’s going on as far as the homeless situation,” Emmett said. “The fires have intensified the feelings, whether the fires are related or not.”

Emmett said that an preliminary analysis shows that about 25 percent of calls to the fire department for medical assistance are “drug- and alcohol-related in the five-block area of downtown Guerneville.” The estimate comes from an analysis of calls between January and October in 2015.

Emmett said he asked paramedics to start collecting more specific data about calls in order to get a better sense of “how this homeless situation has affected the fire department and the town itself.”

But just as entrepreneurs have begun to bring new life to storefronts and properties long neglected, some in the community also have brought new energy to efforts to help the community’s indigent residents.

Advocates organized showers for the homeless at the temporary shelter at the Guerneville Veterans Memorial Hall. County officials are exploring locations for a year-round homeless shelter and daytime drop-in center.

And some have made efforts to address problems such as trash and environmental contamination that often arise from large homeless populations.

Cleanup days

Chris Brokate of Forestville began organizing cleanup days about a year ago to handle the amount of trash he saw flowing in the Russian River, much of it coming from a proliferation of homeless camps along the water.

On Dec. 10, volunteers collected 11,340 pounds of trash during a four-hour effort to clean three abandoned encampments along the river in and around Guerneville, Brokate said. Brokate goes around to homeless camps and hands out trash bags, asking people to fill the bags for him to collect later. He said most homeless people have been willing to help with cleanup.

“I hope down the road, we think it’s so sad we had these fires but look at what it did for this town,” Brokate said.

The Russian River community will gather at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Guerneville School auditorium at 14630 Armstrong Woods Road.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.