Community Copes With Fear of Fires : Crime: No homes have burned and no one has been injured in the mostly small blazes that have recently struck the area. But anxious residents say they feel as though they are being held captive by arsonists.

Francie Neeley anxiously scans the horizon and smells the air for hints of smoke. Mary Ann Floyd is afraid to leave home for long, fearful that it might not be there when she returns. And Ginger Rohaley and her husband plan to finally replace their home’s wood shingle roof with one that is fire resistant.

These cautious actions are but a few of the ways Leona Valley residents are coping with a rash of deliberately set fires that have seared the area’s brush-covered hillsides in the past two weeks. Frightened residents said they feel as if their quiet, rural community is being held captive by arsonists.

For many in this Antelope Valley community, a collection of widely scattered farms and ranch houses 10 miles west of Palmdale, the siege has provided residents with a cruel reminder that their peaceful lifestyle does not shelter them from crime.

“As far as crime goes, our biggest thing has been trash dumping. People think, ‘Arson doesn’t happen in the Leona Valley. That only happens in the city,’ ” said Floyd, a community activist and eight-year resident.

“It’s a shock and it’s left us feeling on pins and needles,” she said. “This is a crime, and it’s a major crime. It affects us as a community. And when the realization occurs to us that we’re vulnerable to crime, it’s really a shock.”

No homes have been burned and no one has been injured in the seven mostly small fires that have struck the area since June 28. Most fires have charred less than 20 acres, although one grew to almost 200.

In addition to the Leona Valley blazes, five others have been set in surrounding areas.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested one man on suspicion of setting two of the earliest fires. But even after the arrest the blazes continued, the latest erupting last Tuesday.

Most have broken out in brush along some of the area’s few major roads. On June 29, for instance, two fires were set four miles apart within minutes of each other on Elizabeth Lake Road, resulting in the 200-acre blaze.

Investigators as well as residents believe the arsonist might be commuting through the area, or be someone who at least knows the terrain.

No incendiary devices have been recovered and investigators continue to look for leads. Deputies on patrol hope to catch someone in the act of setting a fire. Residents are pitching in too. Last week they organized the Leona Valley Fire Busters Patrol to watch for suspicious-looking people or cars.

Floyd and other residents who volunteered for the patrols said it is easy to notice strangers in their small community, where most people know one another and the types of cars their neighbors own. Residents began their patrols in cars Thursday, Floyd said.

“We have been at the mercy of some person who is parking on our roadways and setting fires. It’s just a feeling of somebody else being in control of our lives and our homes,” Floyd said. “We wanted to let the bad guys know they can’t come into our town and burn it down.”

Residents expressed frustration when they grappled with the unsettling question of why the fires have been set at all.

“That’s the great big question in red capital letters,” said Neeley, a college professor and three-year valley resident.

“This has put an undue and unnecessary pressure on all of us who live up here. And it’s made us damn mad,” said Gloria Gossard, a free-lance writer and longtime Leona Valley resident. Gossard said she canceled a trip to the Sacramento area last week because of concern over the fires.

Despite the widespread fears, the blazes have had the positive effect of increasing awareness of fire dangers in the area.

Residents said this Fourth of July was the first they could remember that was virtually free of illegal fireworks because of the heightened sense of fire danger.

Some residents have been trimming the brush and shrubs around their ranches and farms as an extra precaution. And Rohaley, calling her house “built to burn,” said the recent fires have spurred her and her husband to buy a fire-resistant metal roof that they had long been considering.

“This really changes your priorities when things like this are going on,” said Rohaley, a 14-year resident in the area. She and neighbor JoAnn Sharkey know fires well. Rohaley nearly lost her house in a major Leona Valley brush fire four years ago that destroyed Sharkey’s house.

That fire, which began when debris-burning got out of control, forced the Sharkey family to live in a trailer for nearly a year while rebuilding their hillside house. Last week, Sharkey uneasily watched the smoke from one of the distant arsons. “I don’t want to leave the house,” she said later.