Squatters may have caused fire at storage yard

Jeff Donaldson

Thursday, May 26, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

Chronology of county inspections at Cheyenne Avenue storage yard. (Source was Russell Davis):

A team of various county agencies received a complaint and inspected the property. They found at least 10 vagrants living in various travel trailers, surrounded by possessions, with evidence of illegal dumping of raw sewage, surrounding and under trailers.

Inspection team met with owner on-site. Progress was being made in cleanup of solid waste.

Inspection team found cleanup with marginal improvement. Illegal dumping of waste and vehicles in the right-of-way outside the storage yard worsened. Owner and Metro Police were notified.

Inspection team identified no significant changes in conditions. People were still living on the property. The team interviewed one resident, Donald Cook, who claimed to be living there for eight years. County sent out second notice of violation.

Inspection team found no changes. Sent final notice.

County prepares for abatement, but property owner begins voluntary compliance. Cleanup of yard begins.

Fire breaks out in three sheds and one mobile home at storage yard.

Richard Todd sat in the tiny doorway of his run-down trailer and through broken glass and torn screens peered out at the rubble that had been his neighborhood.

All around him the storage yard off Cheyenne and Devary avenues was a frenzy of fire, police and county officials sifting through piles of smoldering wood and glass. Stray dogs ran back and forth between bricks and debris. Workers moved dilapidated motor homes, half their walls caved in. Abandoned bread trucks sat silent, graffiti scrawled over their doors and windows.

Todd just shook his head when asked about Wednesday's fire. Three sheds and a vacant mobile home somehow ignited, sending flames and smoke shooting high into the air. He watched as other men who lived in the yard ran for their lives when the blaze woke them up.

"There really are only four or five people who live here now," Todd said. "(The owner) let me live here because I worked over there, tearing down the cars. It was easier than going back and forth."

Metro Police and Clark County fire officials today resumed investigating whether squatters living in the abandoned vehicles at the storage yard caused a fire at the property, which borders Nellis Air Force Base and several barren brick and construction yards.

Todd was among those given notice 30 days ago that the storage yard's owner, Dick Howe, wanted people living there to move out, but Clark County officials admit they've known since November that people have lived on the property for more than eight years.

Howe, who refused to be interviewed at the storage yard, was cited on Nov. 8, 2004, by a team of police, fire and county health officials for having at least 10 vagrants living on the property -- "surrounded by their possessions ... with evidence of illegal dumping of waste and raw sewage" on the ground around the vehicles, according to a complaint.

The so-called "Rent Yard," where people have been allowed to drop old vehicles, trailers, construction equipment and other unwanted materials, is one of two properties owned by Howe that have been cited by the county, said Russell Davis, a county spokesman.

A similar storage yard at Sloan Lane and Beasley was cited in June 2003 for having vagrants living in vehicles and the presence of illegally dumped waste, Davis said.

On April 14 the county threatened cleanup abatement procedures at the Cheyenne Avenue property, but Howe agreed to begin cleaning up the yard -- the reason for many of the debris piles, Todd said.

But the cleanup began only after nearly a half-dozen inspections by county health officials failed to fix the problem, authorities said.

"The county knew people were living out there, but the responsibility was thrown on the property owner to ensure they stopped," Davis said.

Metro Police slapped orange tow stickers on nearly all of the vehicles outside the storage yard Wednesday. Police roamed the yard checking out the remaining sheds while animal control officers rounded up two dogs and placed them in the pound truck.

Firefighters meanwhile had issues of their own -- mainly the shortage of fire hydrants to fight the fire. Units from Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Clark County and Nellis Air Force Base responded to the fire, ferrying water back and forth from a hydrant located nearly one-quarter mile back up the road.

"Accessibility was not a problem, but we did have some water supply challenges," said Robert Leinbach, Clark County Fire spokesman. "There were a lot of vehicles out there and things built in the '30s and '40s."

Davis said Howe signed documents of compliance with the Clark County Health District and fire department to meet cleanup requirements, but that he faces no further action from the county so long as he continues to clear the yard.

But that means the yard's occupants, like Todd, will likely find themselves homeless by week's end. His trailer doesn't even have wheels, and he admits he doesn't have money to move it elsewhere.

"Some guys have gone to jail. I don't know where I'll go," Todd said.