Fire doused by sprinkler system
An early morning fire at a San Juan Bautista law office is
believed to be an attempted arson to cover up a burglary.
”
I was woken out of bed at about 4:30 [a.m.] by a resident of the
building in which my office is located, pounding on the door and
saying, ‘your office is on fire, your office is on fire,’
”
said principal partner Dan DeVries hours after the event.
Fire doused by sprinkler system
An early morning fire at a San Juan Bautista law office is believed to be an attempted arson to cover up a burglary.
“I was woken out of bed at about 4:30 [a.m.] by a resident of the building in which my office is located, pounding on the door and saying, ‘your office is on fire, your office is on fire,'” said principal partner Dan DeVries hours after the event.
DeVries ran from his nearby home to the 53 Muckelemi St. office/apartment complex where his firm is located and found the San Juan Volunteer Fire Deparment and sheriff’s officers already were on scene.
Ultimately, fire damage was quite limited.
“The office sprinklers did an amazing job of containing the fire,” DeVries said, “and the fire department did the rest of the job of putting out the fire.”
DeVries said a preliminary check revealed the thief or thieves took computers and some of his personal effects, probably starting a fire in an attempt to cover their tracks.
DeVries called the other four members of his staff early Tuesday to tell them the office would be closed, since Sheriff Curtis Hill asked them to stay out of the office until an investigation is completed.
“We’re waiting for it to dry out and then we’ll be doing more follow-up,” Hill said. “The automatic sprinkler system saved that office.”
Tuesday’s fire resembles a fire that leveled Pacheco Hall Dec. 13. That fire, too, is believed to have been started to erase evidence of a burglary.
The Pacheco fire is being investigated by Calfire, “so we’ll be getting together with them,” Hill said.
Hill said it’s too early to speculate if the two fires are linked.
No one was injured in the fire, and none of the neighboring offices or residences was damaged.
Ironically, DeVries’ office is usually protected by a security system, but the system had been temporarily disabled because “every time the doors rattled we would get false alarms,” DeVries said.
San Juan Volunteer Chief Scott Freels was unavailable to give an estimate of damage in the DeVries fire at press time.
