Man arrested for arson related to destructive California fire

(AP Photo/Josh Edelson). A destroyed bicycle lays amid the rubble of a burned property in Lower Lake, Calif., Monday, Aug. 15, 2016.

The Chimney fire, which broke out near Chimney Rock Road, was just 10 percent contained by Tuesday morning.

Damin Pashilk, 40, was arrested Monday for allegedly setting the fire that has since burned thousands of acres and driven hundreds from their homes.

Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin said Damin Anthony Pashilk of Clearlake, California was arrested Monday on 17 counts of arson and is in jail.

An attorney listed as representing Pashilk did not return a call requesting comment. But then, winds picked up and sent embers flying over firefighters heads, causing the fire to take off and turn into a structure-destroying conflagration. A report issued this week concluded that faulty wiring in a hot tub ignited the 120-square-mile fire.

While firefighters worked in the surrounding countryside, in town crews swept up ash and worked to clear roads of fallen powerlines and telephone poles.

When Holley pulled up to his family’s Mechanic Shop Sunday night, the fire had just ripped through downtown and was making its way towards nearby homes.

The fire was throwing embers and spreading rapidly because of parched conditions brought on by the state’s historic drought, officials said.

“As things get committed we could be reaching fires at up to 100 miles away”, Davis explained.

“Despite the loss, there were a lot of saves, a lot of hard firefights”, Lowenthal said about the firefighters’ efforts.

The vast Clayton Fire has been spread by fierce winds and stretched to more than six square miles about 90 miles from San Francisco.

For the first time in several generations, wildfire had stalked Lower Lake past year during a devastating period from the end of July through September. Mike McGuire said about last year’s wildfire, which killed four people and destroyed more than 1,300 homes.

A new, wind-driven wildfire is rapidly growing in the mountainous Cajon (kuh-HOHN) Pass area of Southern California near Interstate 15.

The nearby community of Clear Lake was evacuated, and sheriff’s deputies in Lake County were investigating burned-out structures.

North Coast Opportunities has reopened its fire relief fund from the 2015 Lake County wildfires.

Cal Fire says more than 1,600 firefighters were fighting the blaze, which as of Monday night was 5 percent contained and threatened some 1,500 structures.

“The airbases are strategically set up so that we can reach a fire at any given spot within the state within 20 minutes”, explained Cal Fire Butte County Captain Matt Davis. Underlying it all: A five-year drought that has sapped vegetation of moisture. At one of the meetings, Lake County Supervisor Rob Brown, the wrestling coach for Kelseyville High School, wore a T-shirt from his team’s rival, Lower Lake High School.

In wetter times, the region was not subjected to the kind of wildfires that now batter it.

One of the season’s largest fires so far, the Soberanes blaze, was 60 percent contained by Monday.

Lifelong resident and county Supervisor Jim Comstock can’t remember anything approaching the devastation of the past year.

Residents have a new view of the wild beauty they’ve always admired. Comstock said when his wife sees tall grass, she wonders aloud when the property owner will cut it.

Crews battle massive Clayton Fire in Lake CountySome Lower Lake area residents who were forced to evacuated are desperately waiting to hear if their homes burned down.

“We just hunkered down and sat there and waited for the fire to blow over”, he said.