A fire that destroyed an old unoccupied house in Pleasanton Friday night has been deemed suspicious by Pleasanton police.
Officers received a call about a large fire in the 1500 block of Lund Ranch Road shortly before 10 p.m. When they arrived, several fire trucks and a crowd of bystanders were already on scene, and one structure was fully engulfed according to Pleasanton Police Department Sgt. Larry Cox.
Officers conducted crowd control until the fire was put out. The structure involved, a single-story house built in the 1800s, burned to the ground according to Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department Batallion Chief Jack Neiman-Kimel.
"By the time we got there it had been burning for quite some time," Neiman-Kimel said, adding that it likely took residents awhile to notice the fire since it was burning a couple thousand feet from the roadway.
The house had not been occupied for over a decade and sits on the nearly 200-acre property known as Lund Ranch II that is slated for a new housing development according to Neiman-Kimel.
No other structures were threatened by the fire, Cox said.
Arson investigators are having lab work done on items recovered from the fire to test them for accelerants. Cox said investigators "can't say we're 100% sure it was arson," but added there are a number of reasons they're calling it suspicious. The building did not have electricity, and it was known as a spot that teenagers frequented Cox said.
"It's really just a matter of going through the evidence and seeing if we have any indication if this was arson," Cox said. "At this point it's a suspicious fire."
No witnesses to the fire have come forward so far, and there were no suspicious subjects reported in the area at the time.
Anyone who may have information about the incident is asked to contact the Pleasanton Police Department's Criminal Investigations Unit, 931-5234.
