Santa Barbara County Fire responds to series of 4 fires that broke out in Isla Vista and Goleta

GOLETA, Calif.—Santa Barbara County Fire Spokesman Scott Safechuck showed us what remained of the 30 foot by 30 foot spot fire at Girsh Park in Goleta. 
 
“This spot fire here, our firefighters did a great job in not allowing not allowing it to extend further into the vegetation,” said Safechuck.
 
But this isn’t the only location that burned early Wednesday morning. 
 
There was a furniture fire on Abrego Road, and 2 dumpster fires on different ends of El Colegio Road.

Dozens of pieces of burned cardboard could be spotted outside one of the dumpsters.

“When there's heavy loads of cardboard like this, it can carry fire. It's very flammable. Cardboard is a paper product, and the reason it's pulled out is because we need to make sure that we can get that fire completely out. We don't want it to smolder and light up again after we leave. And you can see, because of early detection, the damage to the building was very slight. A couple of the windows, vinyl windows had some slight damage to it. But because of that, early detection, people calling 911, we were able to get our resources on scene quickly and extinguish the fire,” said Safechuck.

All of the fires happened within an hour of each other. 

Any time we have fires that are similar in nature in a short period of time, it does raise suspicion of how that that did start or how the fires did start. But, you know, right now, the start of these fires is under investigation and we hope to know more in future,” said Safechuck.
 
Safechuck says it’s been roughly a decade since he’s seen anything quite like this.

“In past years, there have been trends of furniture being intentionally lit on fire in the Isla Vista area. But through education and enforcement, we were able to curve that type of behavior. So this series of four fires within an hour is kind of a new event for us. We haven't had that in some time,” said Safechuck.
  
No one was hurt.
 
The fire department says the public was a huge help in reporting these instances quickly.  

It is unknown if the 4 fires were in any way connected to other fire incidents at Storke Family Housing, but the UC Santa Barbara Police Department is investigating these fires as potential arson crimes.

The UC Santa Barbara Police Department says the circumstances are similar to an arson incident that occurred on March 12, 2024, around 4:10 pm where a picnic table near the Storke Family Housing community garden was burnt in two spots.

In another incident on Sunday, June 9, 2024, a burnt trampoline was reported at the Storke Family Housing Playground, along with the AstroTurf underneath it.