The suspect, 40-year-old Damin Pashilk of neighboring Clearlake, faces 17 charges of arson and is suspected in other fires in the area over the past year according to KRON 4.
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Fire officials announced an arrest late Monday of a man on suspicion of starting a blaze that has raced through a rural Northern California town, destroying more than 100 homes and forcing evacuation of neighborhoods and a hospital.
LOWER LAKE, Calif. (AP) – A wildfire destroyed at least 10 homes and forced some 4,000 of people to flee their homes as flames jumped a road and moved into a Northern California town located miles away from a devastating wildfire almost a year ago. Fire officials have warned the number was expected to grow.
Neither sheriff’s deputies nor Cal Fire had released details Tuesday morning about why they suspected Damin Anthony Pashilk or what evidence led them to believe the fires were deliberately set, or for which ones they believe he is responsible. In a sign of progress, fire officials lifted numerous evacuation orders in the town Tuesday, allowing about 4,000 residents to return.
The fire in Lower Lake reduced businesses to little more than charred foundations that were still smoldering on Monday.
Roughly 1,600 firefighters were battling the Lower Lake blaze amid warm temperatures and light winds.
That blaze killed four people and destroyed more than 1,300 homes. Underlying it all: A five-year drought that has sapped vegetation of moisture.
Snaking walls of flame rising 50 to 100 feet high turned almost two dozen square miles of chaparral to ashes, along with outbuildings and homes in the ranchlands 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
At least a dozen buildings had burned, including the Summit Inn, an historic diner near Interstate 15, he said. Pashilk sparked the fire near Clayton Creek Road, just east of Highway 29, on Saturday, investigators from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) said.
The Los Angeles Times reports Pashilk had been under investigation for almost a year and that officials say he’s responsible for other recent fires in the area.
“Every time firefighters would go in to try and attack the blaze”, says Daniel Berlant with CAL Fire, “another home would light on fire”. The Los Angeles Times reports that locals are already meeting their first double fire-survivors, including “a family burned out of Middletown [in 2015] by the Valley fire just lost their new home in Lower Lake right up the road”. It was 20 percent contained.
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A fast-moving Northern California wildfire has destroyed more than 175 structures and forced thousands to flee an area where drought conditions and high temperatures are making firefighting hard.
