Transients suspected in Santa Rosa auto shop fire

A homeless man was suspected of building a pyramid of flammable items late Monday night and setting them on fire, not far from a suspected transient-caused fire Saturday night at a building along the Joe Rodota Trail.

Santa Rosa Fire Capt. Bob Stratton said firefighters were called to the Dutton Plaza commercial area at about 11:45 p.m. Monday for a debris fire and arrived to find a homeless man in handcuffs near a bonfire. Stratton said a security guard from the shopping area had taken the man into custody after finding him dancing around the blaze. The fire was burning a pyre, which included a wooden pallet stacked with milk carton crates.

It was the second suspicious fire in two days in the same area, Stratton said.

Saturday night, fire caused serious damage to a vacant auto shop building in Roseland. The cause couldn’t be determined, but it likely was related to transient use, a Santa Rosa fire official said. The fire caused as much as $100,000 damage to the Roseland Avenue building, said Marita Petersen, fire inspector.

The old West Transmission building sits alongside the Joe Rodota Trail leading into downtown Santa Rosa and has been used by homeless people off and on as a shelter, according to police and fire officials.

There was no electricity to the building to spark a fire and Petersen said it was likely someone may have had a cooking or warming fire, which got out of control. The fire burned much of the inside and some outer walls of the metal building. The fire was reported at 8:10 p.m. Firefighters found no one at the building, which was engulfed in flames and considered a total loss.

You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter@rossmannreport.