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Published on 02/09/1998 All articles from this issue

Arson destroys Los Altos Hills home

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Town Crier Staff Writer

Early in the morning of Feb. 1 flames engulfed a Los Altos Hills home on Wildflower Lane and burned it nearly to the ground.

"It's a total loss," said owner Jim Danaher, a Palo Alto attorney. He and his wife were in Hawaii at the time. Their 18-year-old cat, Puma, died in the fire.

Neighbors reported the fire at 3:22 a.m.

"They got up and saw the flames," said Bill Hardwicke, chief arson investigator with the Santa Clara County Fire Department.

"It was arson," he said, with a loss "in excess of $1 million. There was a lifetime of items he had there. You can't put a value on it."

An investigation, a "task force operation," is proceeding, involving County Fire, the Mountain View Fire Department, the state fire marshall's office, the San Jose Police Department plus a district attorney's investigation, Hardwicke said.

The fire was so hot that the lemons cooked on a nearby tree. The plastic straps on the green Brown Jordan deck furniture melted and hung like wrinkled pieces of tape.

Everything was so burned that it was not possible to tell where different rooms had been. In one corner, half-buried in black rubble, the only remaining item was a Corning Ware 2-quart casserole with the blue cornflower design.

The brick front entry had caved in.

"Everything collapsed downward," Hardwicke said, into the bottom floor of the three-level home.

"It was total destruction," he said.

Dolph, his fire-sniffing 6 1/2-year-old black Labrador, who is the first canine in the state to be federally certified in flammable liquid detection, was instrumental in the investigation.

"Once we determined the area of origin - from burn patterns - and we ruled out accidental causes, we put the dog in," Hardwicke said.

Dolph donned his four dog-sized fire boots and started sniffing.

"The dog showed us the areas to look. And what we found was extensive," Hardwicke said. "Dolph did wonders."

An arson fire with flammable liquids is "meant to go fast and destroy everything," Hardwicke said.

And it did. "It was a definite statement. We do have a suspect. It's bad enough to lose all those items. But now you're looking over your shoulder all the time," Hardwicke said.