Residents Lose Sleep Over Fires in Silver Strand : Arson: Neighbors take turns patrolling the streets after 17 early morning blazes have occurred within three months.

Like many of her neighbors, Silver Strand homeowner Brita Bear faces nightfall with a gnawing sense of unease. She is tired of waking at the slightest crackle or other disturbing sound that could signal another fire in the small seaside community surrounded by Oxnard.

Over the past three months, someone has ignited 17 early morning fires, terrorizing residents who don’t have a clue as to the identity or motive of the arsonist or arsonists.

Residents and investigators figure the culprit lives in the community or is walking or riding a bicycle--no one has reported hearing the rumble of a vehicle before or after any of the fires.

“You don’t know where or when the fires are going to hit. . . . We wake up with the slightest noise outside,” Bear said. Seven of the fires were set within a block of her Fillmore Avenue home.

Some residents say they’ve lost the freedom they’ve enjoyed with living next to the surf.

“Until now, I’d never been afraid to leave the house with the doors open and walk down to the beach,” said Jerry Pinyerd, who has lived in Silver Strand for about four years.

Most of the 17 fires have been concentrated along six blocks in the middle of the community, often referred to as the Strand. In all, the fires have caused an estimated $240,000 damage to several buildings, two boats and a pickup truck.

To help calm their jangled nerves, wary residents have banded together to patrol the streets in the wee hours of the morning. Neighbors armed with flashlights take two-hour rotating shifts, keeping a sharp eye out for suspicious activity.

“The Sheriff’s Department can’t be down here all of the time, and if some of us are out there walking around, the rest can sleep a lot better,” Bear said.

Investigators from the Ventura County Fire and Sheriff’s departments, who are working together to nab the person or persons responsible for the fires, had no suspects as of Friday.

is week, the Sheriff’s Department released a composite drawing of a male, believed to be 16 to 25 years old, whom at least two residents say they saw in the yard of a vacant house that burned Nov. 28.

Authorities want to question the man, who is described as white, 5-foot-6, with curly blond or red hair. The hair on the sides of his head was closely cropped.

Homeowner Norman Burke lives next door to the vacant Fillmore Avenue home that was badly burned Nov. 28. He said he was preparing his back-yard hoses to join neighbors trying to douse the fire when he saw the young man in the back yard of the burning house.

“I looked over the fence and he was coming toward me and asked if my dog was in the back yard,” Burke said. “Then he bolted over the fence and asked if he could go through my house. He was very excited when he was talking to me.”

Burke said he let the young man walk through his house but was too concerned with the fire to ask any questions.

Burke said a neighbor had earlier heard the young man yelling into the back door of the burning house, which investigators said caught fire after flames from a blaze that started in a boat parked outside spread to the home.

Detective John Mimms, who is heading the investigation of the fires for the Sheriff’s Department, said that except for information that went into the creation of a composite drawing of the young man, authorities have yet to receive any substantial leads from the community.

Investigators say they have determined that all but one of the 17 fires was started by the same person or persons because each began when trash was ignited--each time in the same manner, which investigators have declined to describe.

Investigators believe the first fire, on Oct. 11, which caused an estimated $175,000 in damage to a house on Moorpark Avenue, is unrelated to the other 16. That fire was the only one ignited within the house, in this case in bedrooms upstairs and downstairs.

“We think maybe the first is a revenge-type fire that then triggered someone who is sick,” said David Chovanec, an investigator with the Ventura County Fire Department.

However, the residents who were living in that Moorpark Avenue house said this week that they have no reason to believe someone had sought revenge against any of the three family members. None were home at the time of the fire, which started shortly after midnight on a Saturday.

The rest of the fires appear to have been lit outside the structures.

The last eight started in trash cans between 3:15 and 5:20 a.m. Dec. 16, trash-pickup day in Silver Strand. No arson fires have been reported since then, authorities said Friday.

While the community’s Neighborhood Watch groups have been on the alert over the past few weeks, residents along Fillmore and Moorpark avenues say their foot patrols--along with a private security firm they are thinking of hiring--are their best bet for preventing the arsonist’s return.

“I think the (authorities) are devoting reasonable resources, but the problem is that until this person is caught, no one will feel safe,” said Gerard Kapuscik, general manager of the Channel Islands Beach Community Service District, which provides public services to Silver Strand and has coordinated efforts to inform residents about the fires and ways to prevent them.

“The people are scared and they’re angry.”

Residents are also counting their blessings, saying their good luck--a lack of strong winds during most of the fires--cannot last forever.

About 1,200 homes are tightly packed in the community of about 4,000 residents, a large portion of whom live there only on the weekends or during the summer. Housing prices range from about $200,000 to more than $1 million, according to a local real estate agent.

A fire set during heavy winds could quickly spread from one house to another, fire officials said.

Many residents are getting to know their neighbors and are making sure that trash and other debris are immediately picked up from their yards.

“Ironically, these fires have brought the community much closer together,” Kapuscik said. “And the more aware people in the neighborhoods are of who their neighbors are, and who belongs there, the more likely this person will be nabbed.”