A rash of house fires across Sonoma County leaves two dead and a dozen without homes in 48 hours

A massive pile of blankets, clothes, storage bins and blackened structural debris littered the garage driveway of a Rohnert Park home that was destroyed by fire on Saturday night.

Amid the pile were scorched and melted holiday decorations, and what might have been a Christmas tree.

The front door of the single-story residence on Bernice Avenue remained open Monday afternoon, exposing much of the smoke and fire damage caused by the blaze two days earlier. The floor was covered with insulation and drywall debris, and in the kitchen, the remaining cabinet doors look like panels of charcoal.

Six miles away, in the Hessel area of Sebastopol, similar debris littered the front yard of roadside home on Gravenstein Highway South, where an early morning fire on Sunday killed two people. The 4:40 a.m. blaze destroyed an addition to the single-story house.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office on Monday evening released the names of the two people killed. They were identified as Antonio Harless, 51, and Jennifer Coulter, 46. Sheriff’s officials said Harless’ driver’s license listed Santa Rosa as a residence and Coulter’s license stated Lucerne.

On Monday, two workers boarded up the door to the addition and covered the two holes firefighters had cut into the side wall. Much of the bare walls were burned black, and the remaining furniture were a few scorched, metal chairs.

The two fires were among five blazes in Sonoma County that occurred over the weekend. At 10 a.m. Friday a home on Hibiscus Drive in south east Santa Rosa caught fire; a vacant warehouse on Central Avenue in east Santa Rosa went up in flames about 11:50 p.m. Saturday; and at 10 a.m. Sunday a two-story Petaluma home on Stowring Road caught fire.

Aside from the timing of the fires — all occurred within a 48-hour time-frame — local fire officials said Monday there appears that not much more than coincidence connected the blazes. However, the causes of some of the fires are still under investigation.

Santa Rosa Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal described the blaze on Hibiscus Drive as an “electrical fire that started in the kitchen,” while the warehouse fire on Central Avenue was likely the result of “homeless activity in and around the structure.”

Lowenthal said the level of destruction to the warehouse will likely make it impossible to determine an exact cause of the fire. Short of finding witnesses or some kind of surveillance, the exact cause may remain a mystery.

Lowenthal resisted drawing commonalities between the two Santa Rosa fires. “Activity kind of fluctuates,” he said. “Often there’s not really any rhyme or reason sometimes. It just happened to be a busy weekend.”

Rancho Adobe Fire District Bat. Chief Mike Wiehman agreed. Weihman, who was the battalion chief at the scene of the fire in Petaluma said fire investigators have ruled out arson in that blaze. The fire torched the garage of the two-story home on the 200 block of Stowring Road.

“It’s the rule of chance that all the dominoes fall at once,” Wiehman said, of the timing of the fires.

Wiehman said the fire, which displaced three people, started in the corner of an attached garage and was kept from entering the main house by three things: a ceiling sprinkler located at the interior door from the garage to the house; the fact that the garage was fully sheet-rocked; and the rapid arrival of fire crews.

He said the garage contained a number of vehicles and motorcycles, as well as a garage office area. The fire, he said, “is accidental at this point. There was a lot of stuff in there, so it’s hard to tell what the cause was.”

At the site of the Rohnert Park fire, on Bernice Avenue, Billy Wilson, a neighbor, said Monday that he heard yelling outside around 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Wilson said he checked his outdoor security cameras and saw a big flash coming from his neighbor’s garage.

“By the time I got outside,” Wilson said, “flames were coming through the front door.”

He realized the shouting had come from the family who lived inside the burning dwelling. They were pulling each other away from the fire.

Information about the family, which is being assisted by the Red Cross, was not available Monday. Rohnert Park Public Safety Deputy Chief Aaron Johnson said the fire was likely accidental and appears to be connected to a clip-on lamp used in garage, which the family said was being used as a recreational space.

The blaze extended into the sky and threatened to spread to the residence to the left, causing the next-door neighbors to evacuate.

The neighbors were lucky, Wilson said. The flames had been close to their roof.

Wilson said a firefighter who responded that night later told him that they could see the residential fire glowing from Highway 101. Wilson said he watched as firefighters cut into the garage door, extinguished the flames and pulled out items.

Red Cross officials said they’re providing assistance to one person in connection with the fatal fire in Sebastopol and the nine people displaced by the fire in Rohnert Park.

Martin Gagleano, a spokesman for the Red Cross Northern California Coastal Region, said that includes initial financial assistance, mental health care and spiritual support.

Gagleano said the financial assistance covers alternative housing and any other needs the fire victims may have.