5 New Fires Spread Unease in Silver Strand : Crime: Two vehicles and a boat are damaged, renewing fears that a serial arsonist has targeted the community. Residents vow to bring back a neighborhood foot patrol.

Five small fires set in the beach community of Silver Strand near Oxnard early Monday morning have rekindled fears among residents and fire investigators that a serial arsonist has resurfaced after a break of nearly three months.

Two vehicles were destroyed and a boat was damaged in separate fires along a stretch of Santa Monica Avenue about 1 a.m. Monday, arson investigators said. Two other trash fires were reported within minutes just blocks away, making a total of 23 fires in the area since last fall.

The latest fires have renewed fear and distrust among neighbors in the tiny beachfront community, where 17 fires were set during the last three months of 1992.

Many residents interviewed Monday vowed to renew the neighborhood foot patrol that apparently frightened the arsonist away last fall but was suspended after several weeks of inactivity. A community meeting is being planned for this week, several residents said.

The latest rash of fires began early Friday morning, when someone set fire to a garage in a Glendale Avenue duplex. Investigators say that fire is under investigation, and they would not call it arson, but Monday’s blazes were all classified as arson.

“This is a potentially deadly situation,” resident David Shurtliff said. “Somebody’s going to die if they don’t get this clown.”

A Jeep owned by David Taylor of Palm Springs, who was visiting Shurtliff over the weekend, was one of the two vehicles destroyed Monday, Ventura County fire officials said. Shurtliff said his guest was on a bus back home and was not available for comment.

The other vehicle fire burned the interior of Christina Strum’s Ford Tempo.

“At least it’s paid off,” she said, surveying the wreckage and shrugging. “But I lost my job two months ago and my insurance lapsed.”

County arson investigators have few leads in the case but continue to respond to tips from the public.

“We just keep running down any leads we get,” said fire investigator David Chovanec. “We’re depending on the public community to give us a call if they saw anything, and we’ll take it from there.

“It’s extremely difficult because of the area. The homes are so close together and there are so many places to run and hide. As soon as the calls come in we have deputies all over the neighborhood.”

But some residents are growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress.

“If I’d have seen him I would have broken his legs,” said Mark MacGregor. “Trust me. If the people on this beach find out who it is before the cops do, he won’t need to go to jail.”

MacGregor said the arsonist must have been watching the first vehicle fire, because the second broke out while residents were busy fighting the first.

“That guy was obviously hanging out watching us,” he said.

Within minutes of the two vehicle fires, a third blaze broke out at the east end of Santa Monica Avenue.

“I feel very fortunate,” said John Ventress, whose 20-foot Skipjack suffered only minor damage. “If my neighbors and friends hadn’t been out on the street, I could have lost my whole house.

“There’s 40 gallons of gas in this thing,” he added, running his hands over the vessel’s charred edges.

The two trash fires were started near homes along Ventura and Hollywood avenues, with one sputtering out without igniting a staircase leading to an apartment entrance.

“I was lucky because there was some wood in this (trash) can,” said Hollywood Avenue resident Danny Broadhurst. “It was right under the stairs, and there’s no other way to get out of the apartment.”

The arsonist, who has set all the fires in the early-morning hours, cannot be caught without the public’s cooperation, officials say.

“We don’t have anything to work with right now,” said arson investigator Bill Hager. “We’ve been given a few leads, but they didn’t pan out.”

Hager said residents can help by wetting down their trash cans and watching for suspicious people.

“That’s what we’re going to have to have,” he said. “We can’t be out there on the street every night. We don’t have the manpower.

“I walked the neighborhood looking at trash cans, and all of the trash was dry as a bone and easy to light.”

Hager said a composite sketch of a suspect wanted for questioning, drawn last fall, has not helped investigators. The suspect, a 16- to 25-year-old Anglo male, was seen Nov. 28 in the vicinity of a fire that gutted a vacant house on nearby Fillmore Avenue.

“He’s getting braver and braver,” Shurtliff said. “It used to be garbage cans, but now it’s cars and boats.”