{"id":175374,"date":"2026-02-12T19:15:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/175374\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T19:15:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:15:33","slug":"fresno-battalion-chief-fire-on-city-land-possibly-intentional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/175374\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno battalion chief: fire on city land possibly intentional"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Fresno Fire Department official believes the Sunday evening fire that burned an abandoned building<\/a> on a vacant, city-owned property near Blackstone and McKinley avenues may have been set intentionally.<\/p>\n

Fresno Fire Battalion Chief Kirk Wanless on Sunday said the fire was \u201chighly suspicious,\u201d noting it followed a recent blaze that occurred one block away<\/a> on a property the city has pursued control of through eminent domain in court.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Wanless told The Fresno Bee that Sunday\u2019s fire was so destructive that it\u2019s unlikely the department will be able to determine a cause. But he said the building that burned did not have any source of power or gas, and did not appear to be used regularly by unhoused people seeking shelter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s harder for me to see that it was an unintentional fire that got away,\u201d Wanless said. \u201cThat leads me to conclude that it was somewhat intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fire began Sunday after 6:30 p.m. on a 3-acre property east of the BNSF Railway tracks that cross Blackstone Avenue just south of McKinley Avenue. The city acquired the property, which appears to have been used as an industrial yard in its past, last March for $4.5 million from a company called Rocking Rail LLC.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of several properties in the area that the city needs for a $150 million project that will lower Blackstone and McKinley avenues<\/a> so the streets travel below the tracks. The city has already purchased some properties and has eminent domain proceedings open for others in the area.<\/p>\n

One of the properties with eminent domain proceedings is the site of the former Carl\u2019s Jr. building on the northwest corner of the Blackstone-McKinley intersection that burned Jan. 29.<\/p>\n

City Councilmember Nelson Esparza, whose district includes the sites of both recent fires, said he doesn\u2019t think there\u2019s yet a reason to believe there was foul play in either blaze. But he added that demolition work on city-owned properties in the area will begin this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expedited the contracting process for the demolitions,\u201d he told The Bee on Monday. \u201cYou\u2019ll see that begin right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A A preliminary rendering looking from the northeast to southwest depicts for how both Blackstone and McKinley avenues in central Fresno will be lowered to run underneath the existing BNSF Railway tracks near Fresno City College. New bridges would carry the train tracks above the two streets. It\u2019s similar to lowered streets under the railroad tracks at Shaw and Marks avenues in northwest Fresno. City of Fresno Capital Projects Department Is there pattern in Fresno\u2019s recent Blackstone Avenue fires?<\/p>\n

To Wanless, who\u2019s served with the Fresno Fire Department since 1998, the building that burned Sunday did not appear to show signs typical of one that would catch fire accidentally.<\/p>\n

He said old wiring, worn out or misused equipment and gas-powered water heaters are often a source of ignition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was none of that,\u201d he said. \u201cEssentially, it appeared to be an empty building with no normal occupants to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wanless said \u201ca fair amount\u201d of fires begin when unhoused people lose control of warming or cooking fires inside of structures, but those fires are accidental and not malicious. Still, though the area around the tracks attracts unhoused people. Wanless said his impression was that the building that burned was not being used as a makeshift shelter.<\/p>\n

Ruling out typical causes and considering the fire just over a week prior at Carl\u2019s Jr., he said there could be a pattern that indicates one or more people are intentionally setting fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that part of this?\u201d Wanless said. \u201cI can\u2019t say for sure, but it raises my suspicion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fresno City Councilman says properties vulnerable to trespassing, coming down soon<\/p>\n

Esparza, the area\u2019s councilman, said it\u2019s more likely the recent fires have been caused by normal activity from unhoused people.<\/p>\n

According to Fresno\u2019s Municipal Code<\/a>, the owners of vacant commercial properties, including the city, must remove fire hazards, secure buildings against trespassers and have working fire protection systems. Esparza said the city-controlled properties had been properly boarded up and fenced off, but he added that unhoused people regularly cut holes in the fencing to access the buildings, including the one that burned Sunday.<\/p>\n

Esparza said the Jan. 28 fire at Carl\u2019s Jr. prompted him to ask the City Council the following day to look for ways to speed up the demolition of the buildings the city already controls in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, the solution is going to be demolition,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s all going to be beginning here this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 10:16 AM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Erik Galicia<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea\u2019s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik\u2019s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Fresno Fire Department official believes the Sunday evening fire that burned an abandoned building on a vacant,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[71126,83620,112,3423,114,113,83621,83622],"class_list":{"0":"post-175374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-arson-investigation","9":"tag-blackstone-and-mckinley","10":"tag-fresno","11":"tag-fresno-fire","12":"tag-fresno-headlines","13":"tag-fresno-news","14":"tag-suspicious-blaze","15":"tag-vacant-city-owned-property"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}