The Summit Fire, which started on May 22, 2008, grew to engulf more than 4,000 acres.
The arrest yesterday of Los Gatos contractor Channing Parker Verden came almost a year after the Summit Fire, which charred 4,270 acres and destroyed more than 130 buildings last May. But documents show that Cal Fire officials have known all along who started the fire.
A Statement of Probable Cause dated May 22, 2008 and released yesterday shows that Cal Fire arson investigator Kay Price discovered six smoldering brushpiles near the blaze on the day the Summit Fire broke out. They were allegedly the result of a land-clearing job that Verdon had done for Summit Road property owner Andrew Napell.
Price knew to visit the Napell property because two months earlier, she had been at the site, and warned Verden that the burn piles were dangerous, according to the Probable Cause document. At that time, fire officials directed Verden to douse the piles at night, to station a water source at the site, and to make sure there was someone attending to the fires at all times.
When she revisited the site on the day of the Summit Fire, Price measure the temperature of two of the burn piles and found them to be around 1,000 degrees. “In my training and experience as a fire investigator,” Price notes, “measuring temperatures so high in these piles indicated there was no effort to extinguish the piles with water prior to any work crews leaving the job site over four weeks ago.”
Verdon now faces arson charges, which could land him in state prison for up to seven years. He is being held in Santa Clara County Jail on $250,000 bail. According to an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the standard bail for the crime is $60,000.
Comments (4)
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Bernard T. Harlowe Wed, Apr 22, 2009 - 9:40 pm
Is part of the new look editorializing in headlines? I think this guy is a bonehead for causing this thing to happen, but when a news source makes a lack of objectivity on a matter so obvious (even if you agree with them), it makes me wonder how the rest of the news presented here is slanted. It’s the local newspaper website, not the Drudge Report or your personal blog, lets try to keep it somewhat objective.
eric johnson Thu, Apr 23, 2009 - 1:17 pm
Mr. Harlowe: I appreciate and share your commitment to fairness. But the headline doesn’t editorialize beyond pointing out that authorities took almost a year to make the arrest, despite the fact that Cal Fire has long believed they had their guy.
I probably should have posted a link to the Statement of Probable Cause, dated May 22, 2008: http://tinyurl.com/summitfire
William H. Dawkins Mon, Apr 27, 2009 - 8:24 pm
Mr. Johnson, If you could take the time to check your sited article in the Sentinel. You might discover that no one was charged with arson!
The fact that Cal Fire knew that the six piles had been smoldering for four weeks, as fire season approached, leads me to believe that more than one person might be responsible for this tragedy. Don’t we pay firefighters to extinguish Fires?
Mr. Verden will almost certainly spend his 7 years in jail and maybe this is just but, I think extinguishing the burn piles the day they were discovered and issuing a citation with a stiff fine would have worked pretty well to nip this fire in the bud.
Deborah A Hammons Tue, Sep 08, 2009 - 3:16 am
I absolutely agree about the firefighter’s responsibility to be more timely from my own personal experience.
The “lexington Fire” in 1985 was an absolute blunder. Mr. Verden, his wife, my husband, our two children were not evacuated after having repeatedly called the Los Gatos fire dept..I was waitressing at the Summit Inn restaurant witnessing my home going up in flames and pacing back and forth.
This fire began straight accross Hwy.17 and the fire dept. was supposedly keeping track of the wind direction. They stated the day we noticed smoke and an orange sky that we would be contacted if the fire was any threat. We were never contacted. The following day, we lost our home.
I received a phone call at work letting me know my children were safe and that my husband was helping Channing get his horses and dogs down the mountain.
My husband arrived at my work site shortly after the phone call stating we had lost everything.
I know only too well what a tragedy this is.
Now. I haven’t seen Channing for a few years and my daughter informed me of this charge against him. This really makes my heart ache for Channing’s plight.
The firefighters themselves who were out fighting the fire, we wholeheartedly applauded. The lookout team at the fire station or whomever was responsible for ignoring the impending dangerous situation escalating, wll to put it mildly…one cannot imagine how stirred up emotionally, even after all these years I am feeling.
I only wish I could contact Channing Verden and his family.
He is my four children’s Godfather and we are all greatly concerned.