A contractor hired to clear land on Summit Road last March was arrested today on suspicion of causing last spring’s Summit Fire, a blaze that raged for a week in May, wiping out 4,270 acres and laying waste to 132 structures.
Channing Verden, 51, of Los Gatos 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. Whereas arson is “a deliberate act to cause damage or loss of life,” Verden’s charge “speaks more to what he didn’t do,” Muyo said.
If convicted, Verden faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
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 a statement released by the District Attorney’s Office. 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,” he said.
Verden’s work on the property lasted for about a week in late March and was delayed due to an equipment fire. The District Attorney’s statement 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.
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.
In the meantime, CAL FIRE San Mateo, Santa Cruz and 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 currently in custody and his bail was set at $250,000, Muyo said. Verden will be arraigned 2 p.m. Wednesday in Department 23 of the Hall of Justice in San Jose.
