The alerts started flowing in this past Wednesday afternoon: A multi-pronged wildfire, consisting of three spot fires, was burning along Chalk Hill Road in the countryside east of Healdsburg and Windsor. Winds were high and grasses were dry. Locals held their breath while Cal Fire and various other local agencies pounced — including Northern Sonoma County Fire, the Healdsburg Fire Department and Dry Creek Rancheria.
All ended well in a matter of hours, with no reports of evacuations, injuries or burned buildings. Here’s the Cal Fire recap of the short-lived Flora Fire:
The fire was first reported at 4:39 p.m. near the 12000 block of Chalk Hill Road. The road was closed to traffic between Spurgeon Road and Flora Ranch Road into late Wednesday evening. The wind driven fire quickly grew to 36 acres before firefighters were able to stop its forward progress at 7:15 p.m.
Within 10 minutes of that firefighting milestone, investigators on Cal Fire’s law-enforcement team had arrested a 44-year-old man named Justin Roy Jones from the small town of Anderson up in Shasta County, who they say had been driving recklessly through rural Healdsburg that afternoon. He’s now facing felony charges for starting the fire, Cal Fire officials say.
“The subject was observed driving his truck with no right front tire for over four miles, creating sparks as the truck grinded on the asphalt,” they say. “This caused three separate fires along Chalk Hill Road, threatening multiple structures and burned 36 acres.”
The Press Democrat is reporting that this Justin Jones fellow has a checkered history with the law, and is facing punishment for other offenses as well:
Jones was on probation for an unknown crime when he was arrested in the aftermath of 4:41 p.m. fire, Cal Fire said.
Jones was arrested for suspicion of unlawfully and recklessly starting a fire and for violation of his probation, Cal Fire said.
He was booked into the Sonoma County Jail around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday for the fire starting offense, a felony, as well as for felony receipt of stolen property, misdemeanor possession of brass knuckles and two misdemeanor counts of possessing another person’s identifying information with the intent to cause fraud, according to jail records.
This is the second such crackdown in response to a Healdsburg-area fire so far this season. Over Fourth of July weekend, Cal Fire cops arrested man from Cloverdale for allegedly starting the 11-acre Point Fire with his John Deere lawn mower in the hills northeast of Geyserville. He’s now facing felony charges, too.
“The cause of the Pocket Fire was determined to be the result of using a riding lawn mower in cured annual grasses, four-feet tall,” Cal Fire officials said back then. “The riding lawn mower used is designed for wet, green lawns, not for dry weeds or grass. The medal blades on riding lawn mowers can spark fires when hitting rocks.”
During the Flora Fire on Wednesday, dogged local photojournalist and fire chaser Kent Porter rushed to the scene per usual and took some stunning photos of firefighters doing their thing, for the Press Democrat.
One of his photos shows a crew of state prisoners, who are often dispatched to help fight wildfires, walking a fenceline between two fields: one blackened by the blaze, one pinkened by fire retardant. Another shot, equally epic, shows the firefighters in silhouette at dusk, taking a food-and-water break along the ridge. Check them out here. The icons of fire country!
