Two suspicious fires reported in northwest Redding, among flurry of recent reports

Firefighters kept busy Friday morning when at least four fires were reported in northwest Redding within a 3-hour period ― all of them within the vicinity of Quartz Hill Road ― and two of them were deemed suspicious.

None of the fires exceeded 1 acre, no structures burned and no one was injured in the blazes, Redding Fire Department officials said.

A fire in the area of Benton Drive and Barbara Road briefly threatened residents as the blaze burned uphill toward a neighborhood. Residents were asked to evacuate for a short period while firefighters knocked down the flames.

The first fire, on Quartz Hill Road and Stone Canyon Drive, was reported at about 8:15 a.m. That fire burned brush, grass and trees and was confined to less than an acre.

Shortly after 9 a.m., firefighters were called to a second fire near Barbara Road and Benton Drive, less than a mile north of Quartz Hill Road.

The Stone Canyon Drive and Barbara Road fires were both deemed suspicious, according to the Redding Fire Department, but the agency said Friday afternoon the cause of the blazes was still under investigation.

The Barbara Road Fire started on a small, little-used dirt road about 100 feet north of Benton Drive, said Shawn Plummer, a Redding Fire Department battalion chief. The Barbara Road fire was kept to about three-quarters of an acre, Plummer said.

Mark Dill, who lives on nearby Pearl Street, said he was at home when he spotted the smoke on the hill behind his house.

“And so we went into action. We set up sprinklers; that's all we can do. I went right to two neighbors down, which is the house it burned behind, and got out their hose and put out a couple of little things that were starting to burn in their flower beds in the mulch and tried to do what I could with a little hose. And Cal Fire and the Redding Fire Department showed up right at the exact minute it was starting to cross the fence — and that was a miracle,” Dill said.

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Plummer said Barbara Road and Pearl Street residents were evacuated until the fire was knocked down.

Down the hill, below Pearl Street, firefighters hosed down hot spots, chopped brush and cut fire line while a fire investigator and a Redding police officer poked through the ashes in an area off the dirt road where the fire originated.

The fire investigator, Guido Concello, had been at the fire at Stone Gate and Quartz Hill roads only minutes earlier.

Dill said he felt the fire near his home was a blessing in disguise because it helped to clear some of the thick brush from the hillside below the homes.

“You couldn't have prescribed a fire like this to actually create such a great fire break and what was cool was the weather is a little cooler today, miraculously, and it's a little moist. So that fire crept at a reasonable rate, rather than that at firestorm rate. So we feel very fortunate and we win,” Dill said.

Another fire was dispatched just before 11 a.m. in the area of Keswick Dam Road and Quartz Hill Road, outside the Redding city limits.

Crews reported a 50-by-50-foot spot fire east of Keswick Dam. Another fire was reported off Bellagio Terrace, not far from the Stone Canyon Drive and Quartz Hill Road blaze. But crews who went to the site were not able to locate a fire.

Fire danger in the Barbara Road neighborhood has been an issue over the past several years as numerous fires have started in the Sulphur Creek Canyon north of Benton Drive and south of Lake Boulevard.

Residents in the Barbara Road neighborhood have reported that some insurance companies have dropped their homeowner’s insurance coverage because of the fire danger in the area.Dill, though, said he still has insurance on his house.

Two residents of the Barbara Road neighborhood have said while they were dropped by their insurers, they have been advised not to talk about their loss of coverage.

State Farm Insurance announced last month that it would stop selling new home insurance policies in California. But State Farm is not the only insurer dialing back coverage in the state. The number of homeowners statewide who have had their fire insurance policies canceled jumped to 235,000 after the fires of 2017 and 2018, according to the news website Cal Matters.

Reporter Damon Arthur welcomes story tips at 530-338-8834, by email at damon.arthur@redding.com and on Twitter at @damonarthur_RS. Help local journalism thrive by subscribing today!

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Two suspicious fires reported in northwest Redding