Three Feared Dead In Suspicious Fire Bonner County Deputies Believe Meth Lab Exploded While They Were Serving Warrant At Rural Home

Three people are feared dead following an explosion and blaze that destroyed a home about five miles south of Priest River.

Sheriff’s officials believe the explosion was caused by a methamphetamine lab inside the house. The fire started about 9:30 p.m. Monday, while Bonner County deputies were serving a warrant there.

Three people are unaccounted for, but sheriff’s officials were reluctant to declare them fire victims and release their names until they had sifted through the ashes of the two-story house.

As of late Tuesday, the only bodies they had recovered were those of a cat and a dog, said Sheriff Chip Roos.

Firefighters responded from three fire districts, and poured water from tanker trucks on the house throughout the night and early Tuesday morning in an attempt to cool it down for investigators.

“It was a very hot, very fast fire,” said Capt. John Valdez of the Bonner County Sheriff’s Department.

The explosion was so strong it blew the windows out of the second story, Roos said.

Two officers were serving a warrant for the arrest of David D. Reese, 22, a transient who was wanted both in Bonner County and in Pend Oreille County, Wash.

Reese was wanted in Bonner County for failing to complete anger management classes ordered as a result of a 1999 aggravated assault conviction. He’s wanted in Washington for violating terms of probation on a conviction there.

Reese was staying at the log home rented by Pat Horton and Toni Moriniti. Horton and Reese were at the home when officers arrived, according to Valdez. Moriniti was not.

Officers also saw others in the house.

“While they were inside the house, there was an explosion and fire in the upper story,” Valdez said. The officers, along with Reese and Horton, got out of the house unharmed, but three others might have been trapped inside, Valdez said.

On Tuesday, a multi-agency arson team, the Sundance Drug Task Force and sheriff’s detectives pored over the burned wreckage of the home, located on Rocky Road, a heavily treed lane southeast of Oldtown.

Roos said detectives uncovered finished methamphetamine and chemicals associated with making the illegal drug.

Law enforcement officers had heard there was a drug lab in the neighborhood. That information and the explosion led officers to speculate the fire was caused by chemicals used in the manufacture of the drug, Valdez said.

“It’s possible they could have been cooking and somebody knocked something over in the upper story, because the police were there and they panicked,” Valdez said. “We don’t know. We really don’t have enough information.”

Valdez said the officers did not use their weapons or otherwise take any action that could have started the fire.

Jessie Strong, a neighbor and owner of the destroyed home, was putting her children to bed when the fire started. She didn’t hear the explosion, but one of her five children noticed smoke in the sky.

“I thought maybe they were burning brush,” Strong said Tuesday, after delivering photos of the home to investigators at the scene.

“We went outside and heard all these popping noises, so we knew it was a big fire,” she said.

The fire flattened the log home, except for one wall, which fire investigators prodded Tuesday afternoon with a long pole. Strong grew up in the house, which was built by her father.

Some family mementos, such as school projects and her mother’s old music albums, were stored in the closets, Strong said. She and her husband, a logger, have no insurance on the home.

Strong said she rented the home to Horton and Moriniti about three months ago.

“They said they didn’t have anywhere to live,” she said.

Strong said she wondered about all the traffic and visitors the house attracted. But when she asked Moriniti, she was told that Horton was running a car repair business and sold parts.

Although Strong had been in the house to collect rent, she had never noticed any drug activity, she said.

“I wish I would have known before,” she said. Strong saw Moriniti Tuesday morning and knew she had survived the fire. Moriniti works for a temporary personnel agency and told Strong she was working when the fire occurred.

By early Tuesday evening, sheriff’s officials still did not know whether the missing people had survived the fire. Two of the three also are wanted on warrants.

“They’re not the kind of people who would go over to the neighbors and have them call and say, `Oh, we’re OK’,” Roos said. “All we can do for right now is keep working at it.”

West Pend Oreille Fire District Chief Les Kokanos said the arson investigation and detective work would be slow going.

“There’s a lot of digging to do,” he said. “Three or four feet deep of ashes and stuff. It has to be real slow so you don’t miss anything.”

By the time the firefighters arrived late Monday, the house was too far gone to enter and attempt any rescue, Kokanos said.

The fire was treated differently than most because of the possibility of chemicals and evidence for a criminal investigation, he said.

“You don’t want to disturb what’s there,” he said.

Five cars parked near the home were ignited by the heat and were also destroyed.

This sidebar appeared with the story: Cooking meth: A recipe for disaster

Methamphetamine manufacturers concoct a hazardous recipe every time they begin “cooking” the drug.

The homemade drug is made using ingredients from grocery and hardware stores using such toxic substances as toluene and battery acid to help the chemical process.

“Cooks” use highly volatile chemicals like gasoline, liquid ammonia fertilizer, hydrochloric and sulfuric acid to extract meth from diet tablets and over-the-counter cold medicines.

Add heat, combustible battery acid, a sloppy cook and there’s a high chance of fire, police say.

North Idaho leads the state in the number of meth labs busted by Idaho State Police.

As of Sept. 17, there have been 71 meth labs reported in the five northern counties. That’s almost 53 percent of the state’s 134 labs statewide this year, according to ISP reports. ISP researchers expect the total number to hit 188 by year’s end.

Last year, there were 171 labs statewide discovered by ISP, of those 92 were in North Idaho.

Police say it’s not uncommon for fires to break out in suspected meth labs.

In December 1999, a downtown neighborhood was forced to evacuate after a fire erupted in a suspected meth lab.

One man was rescued by police, who found him unconscious in a basement crawl space.

Police believe the man set the lab on fire to hide the evidence.

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