Suspected arson in SLO destroys $25,000 in baseball equipment

About $25,000 worth of San Luis Coastal Unified School District baseball equipment was destroyed in a fire that officials suspect was intentionally set, one of several suspected arsons in recent months that appear to have targeted property.

The San Luis Obispo Fire Department responded to a report of a structure fire at San Luis Coastal Adult School at 9:57 p.m. Friday and found two wooden sheds and a portable toilet between the district office parking lot and the school’s baseball field fully engulfed in flames.

The fire was extinguished in short order, but school district Assistant Superintendent Ryan Pinkerton said Tuesday that the two structures and the equipment — baseball and softball gear as well as two small vehicles used to drag the fields — were lost.

Pinkerton said the district’s insurance will cover the costs of the lost equipment and storage. He said that school athletics will not be impacted in terms of holding games, but the loss of the vehicles will impact the district’s ability to prepare the fields until they are replaced.

Pinkerton said district campuses have a night custodian on duty but do not have other security features such as cameras or motion detectors.

By Tuesday afternoon, district crews had torn down the sheds and hauled the remains away in dumpsters.

San Luis Obispo Fire Marshal Roger Maggio said Tuesday morning that the department had not yet officially ruled the incident as arson and he had not read his investigator’s final report, but he said preliminary information indicates the fire was intentionally set inside a portable toilet that stood between the two sheds.

“When I have a fire that started inside a port-a-potty, there’s not many things that could have started it,” Maggio said.

A motive is not yet known, but Maggio said the incident follows a similar fire two weeks ago that targeted a portable toilet at Monarch Grove Elementary in Los Osos. That fire was contained to the toilet.

Other fires that appeared to be intentionally set in recent months also targeted property, such as one behind the Marigold Shopping Center that burned a homeless person’s belongings and another that burned a storage container at Goodwill on Industrial Way. Maggio said he has been informed by fire officials in the South County of several recent fires that appear to have been intentionally set in areas where homeless people are known to congregate.

Maggio said he could not say for certain whether one or more people are targeting known homeless areas or restroom facilities. Since October 2014, the city has experienced a series of small, intentionally lit fires in mostly open spaces that investigators believe were set by the same person or group.

No one has been injured, and no significant property damage was reported in any of those fires. However, the most recent fires — in which property was damaged — do not appear to be related to those smaller fires, which were more of a nuisance and were quickly extinguished, Maggio said.

He said investigators suspect at least two different people or groups may be setting fires across the city.

“There are different patterns. With those we were talking about small patches of vegetation,” Maggio said. “Here we have different targets, possibly different motives.”

He said city fire investigators are working with detectives to identify potential suspects. He added that a man arrested by police and suspected of starting a small fire at a gas station last week may be linked or have information.

Since the fire at the Adult School, another grass fire was put out by firefighters Monday morning on a rural bike trail north of Orcutt Road, Maggio said.

He reminded residents to remain aware of people in neighborhoods or other open space areas that don’t appear to have a reason for being there. Anyone who sees a suspicious person or someone walking in the opposite direction of the scene of a fire is asked to call the Police Department at 781-7317.

This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 2:30 PM with the headline "Suspected arson in SLO destroys $25,000 in baseball equipment."