The Los Gatos contractor who prosecutors said started last spring’s Summit Fire was released on his own recognizance and is expected to enter a plea next month.
Channing Verden, 51, faces one felony count of unlawfully causing a fire with an enhancement for causing multiple structures to burn – a charge Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office public information officer Nick Muyo said is different from an arson charge – and could face a maximum sentence of seven years in prison if convicted. The Summit Fire raged for a week last May, wiping out 4,270 acres and razing 132 structures. Fighting the fire cost more than $12 million.
However, Verden lost his home and possessions about 20 years ago in a wildfire and would never let a wildfire start, he said.
In addition, Verden said he’s having difficulty making the connection between when he stopped working at the Summit Road property in early April due to an equipment failure and when the fire sparked up in late May. When he left, the smoldering piles had been extinguished, he said.
According to a statement, the District Attorney’s did not specify whether or how the debris piles had been burning continuously from the time Verden’s crew left in early April to May 22, when the Summit Fire ignited.
“I don’t know what transpired after I left there,” Verden said Tuesday afternoon from his home. “I don’t think the district attorney knows either. There’s an awful lot of methamphetamine being manufactured up there. They could have been dumping their crap in the burn piles.”
Still recovering from the Lexington Wildfire that burned his home in the mid-1980s, Verden said he’s the last person to set a wildfire.
“I know what it’s like to lose everything,” he said. “I almost lost my life.”
The fire claimed his home and 17 classic cars, Verden said, adding that he’ll have to start selling off his property to pay for a private attorney to battle the current charges. He plans to plead not guilty to his charges, he said.
According to a statement released by the District Attorney’s Office, Verden and a small crew were hired for $18,000 to clear a property on the 31000 block of Summit Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains west of Gilroy last spring. Cal Fire officials pinpointed a burn pile on the property, which is owned by Andrew Napell, as the origin of the fire, according to the statement. Several other smoking piles of debris dotted the property when the fire sparked up, one of which measured 1,022 degrees – an indication that “there was no effort to extinguish the piles with water prior to any work crews leaving the job site over four weeks ago,” according to a statement by Katherine Price, a Cal Fire officer who determined the cause of the fire to be blowing embers from the debris.
Napell does not face any charges at this point, Muyo said.
“He contracted with someone he thought was qualified and responsible enough to do the work,” Muyo said.
Verden’s burn site was a familiar one to fire officials by the time the Summit Fire erupted, according to the statement. Firefighters had warned Verden more than once prior to the fire about the area’s hazardous burn conditions. Further, Price noted the absence of a water supply at the burn site, something Verden said he was working to correct. The burn piles were over 10 feet tall and one member of Verden’s crew reported observing embers from the oversized heaps blowing across Summit Road and extinguishing them with a shovel.
Verden said Cal Fire officials gave him the “go ahead” on the burn as long as he broke the heaps into smaller piles, which he said he did.
In the meantime, Cal Fire San Mateo, Cal Fire Santa Cruz and Cal Fire Santa Clara suspended all open burning within unincorporated areas of Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties due to dangerous weather conditions and low moisture levels.
Given Cal Fire’s warnings and the crew member’s statement about the blowing embers, investigators concluded that “Verden’s failure to ensure the piles were out after stopping work on the Napell property did in fact cause hot embers to escape the debris piles and start the 4,270 acre Summit Fire.”
Verden is scheduled to enter a plea and declare his counsel at a May 19 hearing.
