Arson Fire Destroys 4 Arrowhead Homes, Blackens 17 Acres

Four mountain homes were destroyed and four others damaged when an arson fire swept across a hillside at Lake Arrowhead early Saturday.

The blaze caused an estimated $1 million in damage and blackened 17 acres of forest near the houses, firefighters said.

Two young men received minor injuries battling one residential blaze, firefighters said. One resident, Bob Bailey, said neighbors told him the injured men were among a group of seven people “who seemed to come out of nowhere and were all over the place helping everyone; knocking on people’s doors to wake them up, attaching hoses and starting them up, using shovels to clear brush and just generally helping out.”

Arrowhead Fire District Capt. Pat O’Kelly said that when the first firefighters arrived “the whole hillside was ablaze . . . there were electrical lines arcing everywhere and the homes at the bottom were already gone.”

About 150 firefighters from six agencies brought the blaze under control about three hours after the 12:11 a.m. alarm.

Cheryl Carmer, an Arrowhead fire investigator, said the fire, which started in a home still under construction, was “definitely arson.” She declined to give details.

O’Kelly called it “the most destructive fire in memory” at Arrowhead.

A retired physician who lives nearby, Bob Carpenter, said, “I had just turned off the television and looked outside and said to my wife, Carol, ‘It’s awfully bright orange out there.’ In the short time it took me to get to the door, the lights started flickering and everything was on fire out there.”

The injured were identified by neighbors as Steve Blackwood, 20, one of three brothers who were among the group aiding neighbors, and Paul Defore, 20. Both suffered smoke inhalation and hand burns, said a spokesman for Mountains Community Hospital in Lake Arrowhead.

A dozen families evacuated from the path of the fire were temporarily housed at the Lake Arrowhead Hilton Resort. Hotel manager George Koplanis said that viewed from the hotel the blaze “was just one big fireball.”

After a helicopter flight over the burned area, Fred Nyerick of the Arrowhead Fire District said: “The area looked like it had been napalmed. There was a wide burned swath three houses wide up the mountain.”

O’Kelly said two of the destroyed homes appeared unoccupied and vacant lots dotted much of the hillside. Fire companies narrowly saved many other homes above the 27700 block of Alpen Drive, he said.