More suspicious fires reported in rural Josephine County

Josephine County, Ore. – Firefighters in rural Josephine County battled two more suspicious fires Wednesday morning. This comes after numerous other fires on abandoned properties in the area that firefighters said may be human-caused.

Around 6:50 Wednesday morning, firefighters responded to a report of multiple vehicle fires in the 1500 block of Russel Road in Merlin.

According to Rural Metro Fire, crews arrived at the scene to find a vehicle fully engulfed in flames, with fire spreading to three other vehicles, including loaded box truck. The fire was quickly put out, preventing further spread to other vehicles and structures.

About an hour later, RMFD said firefighters responded to a reported structure fire in the 4400 block of Fish Hatchery Road in Wilderville. Once at the scene, firefighters said they found a small fire within a vacant guest house. The fire was mostly under control because of the owner using a garden hose to douse the flames. There was minor damage to the structure.

“Criminal mischief type stuff, to the folks that have some type of vendetta against another person, they wanna just create mayhem, there’s all types of reasons would that a person would do stuff intentionally.” said Rural Metro Fire Division Chief, Austin Prince.

Firefighters said evidence at both locations suggested suspicious causes. The Oregon State Fire Marshal, Oregon State Police’s arson division, and the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office are assisting with the investigation.

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