How to resolve AdBlock issue? Wednesday was day five of the preliminary hearing for 43-year-old Damin Anthony Pashilk, facing 23 charges for setting the Clayton fire in August 2016 and 15 other fires between July of 2015 and August of 2016. He also is charged with the attempted start of a 17th that self-extinguished.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff called three witnesses to the stand on Wednesday. They gave a total of just over an hour of testimony.
Marnie Patchett, a Cal Fire cost recovery analyst, described how she does billing and cost recovery calculations on wildland fires. She was assigned to calculate the suppression costs of Clayton fire which she went over on the stand.
The report, which she completed in January 2018, includes overall totals for fire suppression as well as subreports on personnel and equipment, aircraft and operating expenses.
For ground resources alone, the fire cost $19,743,079.79. Air resources cost another $2,961,839.83, for a grand total in suppression costs of $22,704,919.73.
Defense attorney Mitch Hauptman asked if any costs were recovered on the incident. Patchett said no, they weren’t.
Cal Fire Battalion Chief Donald Watt, who also is a law enforcement officer, said that during the summer of 2016 he was among the officers involved in surveillance of Pashilk.
On Aug. 9, 2016, the day the Canyon fire was set on Seigler Canyon Road, Watt photographed Pashilk and the vehicle he was known to drive at that time, a Chrysler Sebring parked on Dam Road in Clearlake, where Pashilk was watching the fire.
On Aug. 17, 2016, four days after the Clayton fire began and two days after Pashilk’s arrest, Watt assisted another officer with the inspection of the Sebring at Cal Fire’s Davis mobile facility.
He said the inspection was to verify that the Chrysler was functional and in running order, and didn’t have any issues that could cause a fire.
Watt testified that on Aug. 20, 2016, at the Middletown fire training facility he, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Michael Thompson and another officer conducted 10 tests with various paper materials to see if they could be used to ignite dry grass.
In testimony last week, Thompson testified to finding the burned remnants of a twisted paper napkin at the scene of the Canyon fire and collected it for evidence.
In the testing, Watt said they used heavy paper towels and lighter paper napkin, twisted either tightly or loosely, sometimes with a match head inside of them, and then dropped from vehicle height onto dry grass that was set on concrete.
He said the testing confirmed that a flaming napkin could start a fire if placed on vegetation or tossed from a vehicle window. Five of the tests used dry grass, and in three of those tests the napkin ignited the grass.
Fire Captain Nick Wallingford was the last witness of the day. He was assigned as the damage inspector leading the structure damage calculations work for the Clayton fire.
He said he and about five two-person teams completed a systematic search of the fire footprint as well as areas just outside of the perimeter. “We don't attempt to place monetary value on anything.”
Wallingford said field collection was completed on Aug. 19, 2016. At that point the fire was still active. The final report would be done after additional tabulations and map creation.
Explaining the process, Wallingford said each team member carried with them a GPS device which draws a line in the areas where they conduct the inspections, helping him to track the progress.
He said they categorize three main categories of buildings: commercial, outbuilding/accessory and residential. Within each of those are subcategories, such as single family and multifamily homes, and mobile homes in the residential category. To be counted, the structures must be at least 120 square feet and permanent, not mobile.
Wallingford said 320 structures were identified as damaged or destroyed; anything with damage totaling more than 75 percent is considered destroyed. He said 188 residences were destroyed and 14 others were damaged.
He said the report included a damage inspection detail for each structure, but had nothing to do with the Clayton fire’s origin and cause.
Testimony will continue on Wednesday. Hinchcliff said he expects testimony and closing arguments to continue through next Friday.
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