Walnut Creek Apartment Residents Worried Evicted Tenants Started Fire

WALNUT CREEK (KPIX 5) -- Residents at a Walnut Creek apartment complex that was hit by a fire Wednesday morning are concerned that the fire was no accident.

A passerby reported the single-alarm fire at 12:20 a.m. at the Ygnacio Gardens Apartments at 1919 Ygnacio Valley Road, according to Fire Marshal Robert Marshall.

Crews brought the fire under control by 12:50 a.m. and managed to keep it from spreading beyond the second-story unit where it started, but up to four other units may have sustained water damage during the effort to extinguish it, Marshall said.

"We made a good attack with the crews and knocked the fire out really quickly," said Marshall.

Five adults, three children and a dog were displaced.

The fire has been traced to a unit with a history of trouble and residents still living there say the people who had just moved out were nightmare neighbors.

Some of the Ygnacio Gardens residents believe the fire might have been an act of revenge.

A large pile of clothes and other belonging on the ground outside the East Bay apartment complex was in the process of being moved out of unit 34 Tuesday afternoon.

That was the unit that caught fire overnight. Neighbors tell KPIX 5 the tenants were being forced out because of their history with law enforcement.

While firefighters evacuated everyone from the complex safely, neighbors say that hasn't helped their fear subside.

"I think they were getting evicted," said one neighbor who didn't want to show his face on camera.

He said the unit where the fire started has a history of emergency calls.

"There's been police here a lot. Every couple of days the police are here," the neighbor said.

Police records confirm this. Officers have been called to unit 34 15 times in the past three years. Seven of those calls took place during the past three weeks.

"I deemed them as dangerous to me," said the neighbor.

In the daylight, crews worked around massive piles of clothing left behind by the tenants who departed. "I do have fire investigators looking at what the cause was. I know the neighbors say it was arson, but we're going through the process to nail down what the cause was,"

Marshall said the displaced residents should be able to move back in fairly soon, but one neighbor wasn't sure if that was a good idea.

"It may not be over yet, because if they did start it, their vindictiveness may not be over," said the neighbor.