Lake County District Attorney won’t prosecute landowners blamed for destructive Valley fire

Lake County District Attorney Don Anderson has decided not to prosecute the owners of a home where faulty hot tub wiring was pinpointed by state investigators as the cause of the deadly Valley fire that ravaged southern Lake County two years ago.

Anderson said he did not file felony charges against co-owners John Pinch and Parker Mills because he could not prove they acted recklessly in connection with the wildland blaze that erupted in September 2015, killing at least four people and destroying nearly 1,300 homes.

“We’re very confident that was the source of the fire,” Anderson said of the wiring at the Cobb Mountain property, but there was insufficient evidence to sustain felony convictions, he said.

The Valley fire, which charred more than 76,000 acres and did $1.5 billion in damage, was rated at the time as the third most destructive fire in California history.

Eleven months later, Cal Fire issued an investigative report blaming unpermitted hot tub wiring at a rural home on High Valley Road as the fire’s source.

The agency’s 56-page report said the only plausible cause of the blaze was wiring installed by Pinch that overheated as a result of a poor electrical connection, reaching temperatures of nearly 2,000 degrees and igniting dry grass and leaves.

Firefighting costs totaled $57 million and the homeowners could be held liable for them if they were found to be negligent. The state Attorney General’s Office would typically handle any civil case to recoup those costs.

Cal Fire assigned six investigators who worked hundreds of hours at a cost of more than $100,000 on the Valley fire report, said Janet Upton, a Cal Fire spokeswoman.

“At the end of the day we understand it is up to the District Attorney to decide whether or not to proceed,” she said.

Anderson said Wednesday he was convinced Cal Fire had accurately identified the fire’s source as the home owned by Pinch, a retired commercial painter from Sebastopol, and Mills, a Mendocino County resident who lives there part time.

“There’s no question in my mind about that,” the prosecutor said.

But proving the two potential charges - involuntary manslaughter and unlawfully causing a fire with great bodily injury - would require showing recklessness, which includes ignoring the risks of dangerous behavior, Anderson said in his report.

“It’s one thing to create a hazardous condition,” he said in an interview Wednesday, referring to evidence the hot tub installed by Pinch did not meet code in several respects and was done without permits.

But Anderson said he could not prove the wiring was energized at the time Pinch was at the house the day before the fire started. Pinch told fire investigators the wires were “not hooked up at the electrical panel,” Anderson’s report said.

Mills told investigators he worked on the hot tub the day of the fire or a week earlier, according to the district attorney’s report. But Anderson said there was no evidence Mills was aware of the wiring’s deficiencies.

“That question was never asked,” Anderson said in an interview.

No one was at the house when the fire broke out, and the residence sustained minor damage.

Investigators “could have gone into a lot of issues,” Anderson said, adding that he was “not really faulting them for what they did.”

But Anderson said he wished personnel from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office or his office had participated in Cal Fire’s investigation.

“We stand by our report,” Upton said when told of Anderson’s comment.

The prosecutor said his investigators were unable to interview Pinch and Mills because they had obtained attorneys who advised them not to talk with law enforcement after Cal Fire’s report emerged.

“There is no evidence that contradicts the events as explained by Mr. Pinch,” Anderson said in his report on his decision in the case.

Ken Anderson, an attorney for John and Cindy Pinch, did not return a call for comment Wednesday. In a written statement released days after Cal Fire’s findings were made public last year, the couple questioned the state’s determination on the fire’s cause.

They claimed the physical damage at their property was not consistent with Cal Fire’s theory of how the fire started.

Lake County building inspectors frequently find code violations similar to the ones discovered at the home, the district attorney’s report stated.

Don Anderson convened a grand jury in June this year and it subsequently reached a consensus - not a unanimous decision - that no criminal charges should be filed. The jury’s decision isn’t binding on him, but Anderson said in his report he “ultimately agreed with jurors’ conclusion.”

Pinch and Mills may have been guilty of misdemeanors, Anderson’s report stated, but when the Cal Fire report was issued in August 2016 the prosecutor’s office had just 14 days to file such lesser charges by the legal deadline.

That was insufficient time for an investigation and analysis, the report said, adding that filing misdemeanor charges could preclude subsequent filing of felony allegations.

Anderson said the case is closed and would not be reopened “unless something comes up,” possibly in the course of civil litigation.

Jeff Smith, chairman of the Lake County Board of Supervisors, said he was surprised by Anderson’s decision but would not “second guess” the prosecutor.

Smith said it was “disappointing” that no one will be held responsible for the devastating fire.

“I don’t know what that would have done for folks who were hurt by the fire,” he said, noting that no one with significant assets had been considered liable.

The state Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on whether it will pursue a civil case against the two property owners.