Three Fire Sites Examined For Arson Clues -- `This Is Not Normal,' Says District Fire Chief Of Peaceful Suburb Close To Bremerton

BREMERTON - Meadowdale is a tranquil pocket, no longer rural but far from metropolitan. Some residents seem proud to say they haven't been to Seattle in years.

The tall, tree-spiked neighborhood five miles north of Bremerton, and its 35,000 residents sprawling over 20 square miles, have had only accidental kitchen and room fires in recent years, earning Fire District 15 envy for having the lowest fire loss in Kitsap County.

That languid scene was ripped and torn Tuesday night by three highly suspicious fires that baffle District 15 Fire Chief Dean Shank, his 36 paid firefighters and 95 volunteers.

"We don't have fires. This is not normal," Shank said yesterday, as he stood in the parking lot of what had been a dental clinic 24 hours before.

The contrast was stark. He suddenly had such tight security around three fire scenes that "not even firefighters can go in there," he said.

Six county police detectives, four county fire investigators, another on loan from Pierce County and two fire-tracing specialists were neatly, systematically picking their way through char and debris. They will be joined today by a team of investigators from San Francisco's Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division of the Treasury Department.

From the clinic they will move to the badly damaged clubhouse of the Weatherstone Apartment complex across Fairgrounds Road. And from the lawn behind the clubhouse, shrieking children's voices filtered through the trees from the third site, Woodland Heights Elementary School, where a two-room portable building was gutted by fire.

The combined loss has been estimated at at least $500,000, Shank said.

Fires inside three unoccupied buildings in four hours at the intersection of Central Valley Road and Fairgrounds Road are highly suspicious and unlikely to be coincidental, agreed Lisa Kirkemo, an information officer from Fire District 7 in Port Orchard, 12 miles to the south. District 7 was one of eight districts to contribute to the 100 firefighters needed for the blazes that dragged on more than five hours.

Shank, who would not say they are arsons, quickly made clear no link has been established to another fire 200 feet from the clinic. That arson, in mid-October, burned out the 14-unit Central Park Apartments.

The last arson before the apartments was eight years ago, Shank said. "The area is changing, getting more population density. We are not used to that."

Convenience-store owner Larry Anderson, whose business is across the street from the clinic, sees "graffiti starting to show up, and we are starting to have gangs."

He now has steel bars across the store windows because "kids were breaking them to run in and steal some beer."

Only two of his customers, who moved into a nearby complex when they lost everything in the Central Apartments fire, had expressed worry to Anderson. "They said this morning they might move," he said.

Most of Anderson's customers yesterday noted the equipment and activity from the doorway and went on with their routines.

Still, Roberta Riley says she intends to make some changes. She drove home to her Weatherstone apartment about 1 a.m., "and I said, `My God, the building (clubhouse) is on fire.'

"I told my Mom last week I don't think I need renter's insurance. Now, I think I will get some."

Susan Pickett, a Weatherstone resident, recalled: "I survived the riots in Los Angeles, the floods and the earthquakes, so this doesn't scare me. I'm glad that if they had to hit something, it was the clubhouse and nobody got hurt."

Her neighbor and friend, Sylvia Young, admitted, "Yeah, it scares me a little bit, but I'm not going to move or anything like that." Her young son attends classes at Woodland Heights Elementary, "and I went down and checked on him a minute ago and he's doing fine."

Kirk Garrison and Terri James live in a unit facing the back of the clubhouse, where the fire seems to have started in the hot-tub room.

"We were up watching a movie and I got up to get something to eat and the drapes were glowing orange," Garrison said.

Garrison praised firefighters. "They handled it real well, and we never feared it would get out of control," he said.