Five autos destroyed in southeast side arson spree

Thursday, July 29, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

Arson investigators are trying to determine who burned five vehicles early this morning throughout Southeast Las Vegas. The vandalism spree tied up fire engine crews and kept Clark County Fire Department fire investigators scrambling from scene to scene to free up firefighters.

The fires occurred in the general area between Russell Road, Tropicana Avenue, Interstate-515 and Pecos Road. They appeared to be set by amateurs and fire destroyed all of the automobiles, four of them newer models, said Clark County Fire Investigator Clifford Mitchell.

"It has been several years since we've had this type and this many car fires at once," said Mitchell, who has investigated arsons locally for 12 years.

The first vehicle set ablaze was a pickup truck at a commercial center at 4055 E. Post Road at 12:03 a.m., and the last was a car in front of a home in the 3100 block Casanova Circle at 1:27 a.m., fire officials said.

The other car fires today occurred in front of homes in the 5100 block of Willowhaven Avenue at 12:26 a.m., in the 4300 block of Jodi Avenue at 12:48 a.m., and in the 5100 block of Harrison Drive at 1:05 a.m.

The victims appear to have been chosen at random, Mitchell said.

Deputy Fire Chief Bill Kolar said he would "doubt that more than one group" of people were responsible for all five fires. But investigators are not yet saying it definitely was a single band of hoodlums on a crime spree.

Investigators suspect the vandals are teens because this type of activity is more common in the summer when school is out, but there was no evidence this morning to support that theory.

"We have determined it was definitely incendiary, but we did not see any evidence of ignitable liquids that were readily noticeable. There was no heavy smell of gasoline in the air."

Ronnie Ambriz, equipment superintendent at Granite Construction at the Post Road fire, estimated the loss of the company-owned pickup truck that burned at $25,000.

"It is upsetting that there are people out there who would go around and do this for no reason," Ambriz said. "I think it's probably kids messing around.

"We've had incidents where vehicles were broken into, but nothing to this extent."

Ambriz said the window of the office manager's car, parked next to the ignited pickup truck, was broken into last night and someone rummaged through the glove compartment. It is not known, however, if that crime is related to the arson.

In addition to trying to solve the crimes, investigators had to work at a faster than normal pace because engine companies were tied up at each of the scenes, leaving the surrounding neighborhoods vulnerable should other fires have occurred, fire officials said.

"We had to move quickly to free up those engines," Mitchell said. "Some of the fires were in areas behind walls but the vehicles were accessed from the streets."

The dollar damage to the lost vehicles has not yet been determined, fire officials said. Firefighters were able to contain the fires to just the vehicles. There were no injuries.

Metro Police units in the area were called in to assist fire officials in the investigation.

"We are hoping someone comes forward with some information," Mitchell said.

Anyone with information can call Clark County Fire Investigators at (702) 455-7322 or Crime Stoppers at (702) 385-5555.