Mountain View: Vacant building red-tagged after transients start fire

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Police on Thursday took into custody at 16-year-old girl and a 58-year-old man, two of three people who had been living in an vacant, unsafe building and started a fire by lighting up a Duraflame log.

Mountain View Building Division inspectors later red-tagged the building at 1599 and 1601 North Shoreline Boulevard after deeming it unsafe and uninhabitable, according to a news release Friday.

Meanwhile, police arrested the girl on a probation violation and took her to Juvenile Hall, while the man was arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest, being in possession of drug paraphernalia and illegally tapping power from a nearby AT&T utility box. A third person left the building at the request of police.

Mountain View police originally went to the building shortly after 8 a.m. Thursday after receiving a report about several transients who had been living in the building and refusing to leave, the news release said. As police approached the building, they smelled smoke and called for help from the Mountain View Fire Department.

Inside, firefighters found the Duraflame log alight on a cookie sheet on the cement floor, with small flames shooting up, the news release said. While firefighters doused the flames with a fire extinguisher, they also noticed multiple extension cords and propane tanks around the room. They alerted the building inspectors, who red-tagged the facility. Meanwhile, police spoke to a neighboring business owner who told them about the transients diverting power from the utility box, creating an electricity hazard.