Thumbnail photo courtesy of the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office. Above: The DNSO is asking residents in the vicinity of the 1400 block of West Macken for assistance in seeking a person-of-interest connected with a suspected arson.
The Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office is seeking a person-of-interest connected with a suspected arson that took place at a home on the 1400 block of West Macken Avenue in Crescent City at about noon Wednesday.
The fire has rendered the home uninhabitable, Undersheriff Devon Perry told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday. The DNSO is currently building a case and is seeking information about an individual who was wearing dark colored clothing and was seen on video surveillance leaving the area, though Perry said he was unable to release further details about the subject.
“A neighbor saw smoke coming out from underneath the residence, contacted the tenant of that residence and discovered there was a fire going on underneath,” Perry said. “The fire department was contacted and upon arrival requested deputy assistance for suspected arson.”
According to a DNSO Facebook post on Thursday, the subject they’re looking for has a slim build and was wearing a dark-colored hooded sweater, a dark baseball hat and dark pants and was in the neighborhood between 10 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. Wednesday.
When they responded to the scene, firefighters went into the three-bedroom home through the front door and found smoke and fire in a room toward the rear of the house, Crescent City Fire & Rescue Chief Kevin Carey said. At that point, they backed out of the building and worked on extinguishing the blaze using a hose line through one of the windows, he said.
During the fire department’s response, a bystander had made some allegations which prompted firefighters to do a “cause and origin investigation,” Carey said. They determined there were “obvious patterns” indicating that the blaze had started in the home’s foundation crawl space, he said.
“We call them a V pattern,” Carey told Redwood Voice. “So if you can imagine [the fire] starting at a low point and as it gets hotter it causes a V pattern. A lot of the times we can trace the origin back to that pattern. It burned through some of the sub floor and got fire into that room above it.”
Eight Crescent City firefighters responded, Carey said. The agency also received assistance from CalFire, Fort Dick Fire and Pelican Bay State Prison, which also sent an inmate crew.
No injuries were reported among the first responders or the people at the scene, Carey said.
The American Red Cross was called to assist the family, Perry said.
The DNSO is asking the public, especially those living in the area, if they have any information or any video footage that may help their investigation, the undersheriff said. They’re asked to call the DNSO’s tip line at (707) 464-0851.
