By Kristina Peterson
Palo Alto Daily News
Copyright 2007 Palo Alto Daily News
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
 Photo Craig Allyn Rose/EmergencyPhoto.com |
PALO ALTO, Calif — Human activity likely started Monday’s fire that swept through more than 100 acres near the Stanford Dish, officials said Tuesday.
Palo Alto Fire Department Battalion Chief Niles Broussard said firefighters found matches close to where the fire began, in the foothills west of Frenchman’s Road.
Broussard said the department is still investigating whether the matches are “associated with the fire.”
But Fire Marshal Dan Firth said that at the very least, Monday’s preliminary reports that a malfunctioning diesel generator ignited the blaze were false.
“The generator was disconnected and secured at the time of the fire, so there’s no way it could have been the source of the fire,” Firth said Tuesday afternoon.
He said a nearby power pole showed no signs of debris on or beneath its wires, and no evidence indicates that any fuses had blown. Firth said the confusion probably surfaced because the fire started very close to the generator.
An ongoing investigation is determining whether the “human activity” that started the fire was intentional, he said. Broussard said there are no suspects at this time.
On Tuesday, firefighters monitored the hills for “hot spots” that continued to flare up in the scorched area between Highway 280 and Junipero Serra Boulevard.
Broussard said the fire conservatively consumed 120 acres of brushland, but realistically likely spread to around 170 acres. While no structures were damaged in the blaze, Broussard said aid supplied by the California state fire team probably cost $100,000.
The burned area lost all of its grass and trees, he said. While the brush will grow back in a couple of years, “the trees are going to take a lot longer to come back,” Broussard said.
Fire in the foothills has been a controversial topic in Palo Alto, where the city council recently voted to keep Fire Station 8 in Foothills Park open only on state-declared, high-fire-risk days.
 Photo Craig Allyn Rose/EmergencyPhoto.com |
Firth said extra staff in the hills station would not have changed the outcome of Monday’s blaze.
“I don’t think Station 8 would have contributed much to fighting this fire,” Firth said. He said the closer stations responded quickly to the scene and were later aided by teams from the state and both San Mateo and Santa Clara counties,
But Tony Spitaleri, president of the Firefighters Union, said having staff ready to go at Station 8 would have produced a “quicker response time.
“This is the kind of stuff we were warning the (city) council about,” he said.
Unlike a structure fire, which is “pretty much contained to that area,” a wildland fire has greater potential to spread, Spitaleri said.
“When one of those (grass) fires starts, it grows legs and starts running,” he said.
The firefighters union is scheduled to meet with the city July 13 to discuss ways to fund staffing at Station 8.