Santa Cruz police arrest two in apartment building fire
SANTA CRUZ — In the hours after a San Lorenzo Valley wildland fire was contained to 10 acres Tuesday night, fire crews were battling back-to-back blazes in Santa Cruz.
A Lower Ocean two-story apartment building was evacuated shortly after 9:30 a.m. Wednesday when a two-alarm fire broke out in a first-floor corner unit. Inside the unit, emergency responders rescued a woman who was transported to a medical center for treatment while Santa Cruz police were called in to forcibly remove a second-floor inhabitant, Santa Cruz Fire Chief Jason Hajduk said.
One police officer was treated for smoke inhalation related to the fire, Hajduk said.
The fire was initially reported as a domestic disturbance involving a deliberately set blaze, according to a police department release by Sgt. Karina Ceceña. On the scene, Santa Cruz police officers arrested Grant Washburn, 39, on suspicion of obstructing police and fire personnel in their duties and Brenda Scott, 51, on suspicion of deliberately setting the fire. Washburn remained at Santa Cruz County Jail in lieu of $1,000 bail Wednesday afternoon while police Scott remains on an “in-custody” status while receiving medical treatment for her injuries.
The 14-unit Jessie Street Apartments are run by Mid-Peninsula Housing Corp. for extremely low-income persons with psychiatric disabilities and in under city review for construction of a replacement affordable housing project.
In an unrelated incident earlier Wednesday, three tents were destroyed in a blaze that broke out in a Harvey West eucalyptus grove during the morning rush hour, causing traffic backups to stretch back from the intersections of Highway 1 and 9. Hajduk said the cause of the fire, located in a state-owned right-of-way adjacent to Central Home Supply and a private residence, appeared to be accidental in nature.
“It was an open-flame device that was being used inside of a tent,” Hajduk said of the blaze, reported around 7:15 a.m.
Firefighter response kept flames from extending up into the tree canopy or toward nearby structures, but the tents and possessions inside were destroyed, Hajduk said. The department received reports that a man attempting to extinguish the fire had been injured in the blaze, but emergency responders were unable to locate the man after canvassing the area, Hajduk said.
Wednesday’s fires came after firefighters from Santa Cruz Fire Department and other neighboring agencies were released from strike team duties assisting Cal Fire with Tuesday’s Deer Fire near Boulder Creek. The Deer Fire, contained to about 10 acres in steep terrain off Deer Creek Road, was reported as about 75% under control as of Wednesday afternoon, with one outbuilding destroyed and one firefighter suffering from minor injuries.
“They’re just mopping it up now,” Cal Fire Division Chief Jonathan Cox said. “We’re working on control and we should have 100% tomorrow.”
The Deer Fire’s flames were reported first shortly after 1:30 p.m. Tuesday and broke in an area adjacent to last year’s 391-acre Bear Fire, an October 2017 conflagration caused by arson. In addition to lead agency Cal Fire, some eight additional local fire agencies, more than 100 fire agencies, five aircraft plus three helicopters, the California Highway Patrol and Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office helped to battle the blaze at its peak, Cox said.
“The fire service as a whole within this state, we rely heavily on mutual aid from our adjoining agencies, because no one agency can, we don’t have that standing resource on a day-in, day-out basis to take care of those calls that are little bit larger,” Hajduk said. “So, one of our goals is to send a lot of resources up front to minimize the size of any incident. So, that’s what happened yesterday, with the Deer Creek incident.”