Cause sought in Chesrown log home fire

Fire officials are investigating the cause of a fire that burned developer Marshall Chesrown’s 12,000-square-foot Black Rock Ranch home to the ground Sunday.

The Idaho state fire marshal and St. Maries Fire Protection District Chief Larry Naccarato spent most of Monday looking for clues to explain the massive fire that turned the two-story log home into a pile of smoldering debris.

“There’s nothing to indicate foul play,” Naccarato said.

While investigators think they know where the fire started, there’s more work to do before a cause can be determined. Naccarato called in the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for its expertise Monday.

“Just to bring in more brains,” he said.

The home just east of Harrison on Anderson Lake Road is one of two that Chesrown owns in Idaho, according to Jeff Bell of the Gallatin Group, a public relations firm employed by Chesrown.

Chesrown, one of the most prominent developers in the region, also owns a home at The Club at Black Rock, an upscale community on the west side of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

No one was in the Black Rock Ranch home when the fire started sometime before 11 a.m. Sunday. By the time members of the volunteer fire department arrived 15 to 20 minutes later, the main part of the house was being consumed by flames, which ranch employees were trying to douse with a hose, Naccarato said.

The fire district, which covers 78 square miles, was assisted by crews from five other fire departments, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office and the Idaho Department of Lands. Some 40 to 50 firefighters were on the scene, some of whom stayed throughout the night into Monday morning.

“It was so big, and a lot of areas we couldn’t get to because of the hazards that were in there,” Naccarato said.

State crews went into the woods and property around the house to prevent flying embers from spreading the fire. Naccarato said the home had “good defensible space” from wildfires, but the raging house fire threatened nearby forestland.

“They got their backpacks on and started walking through the brush,” Naccarato said. They put out at least two spot fires caused by the house fire.

Six tenders shuttled water from Harrison, and firefighters also put three pumps into a pond near the house for fire-suppression efforts.

“We had a good water supply the whole time,” Naccarato said.

While the home is a total loss, no other buildings at Black Rock Ranch were threatened, nor were any of the estimated 100 horses at the ranch, which specializes in breeding horses for working cattle.

Chesrown could not be reached for comment Monday, and Bell said he didn’t know how much time Chesrown or family members had spent at the home. The house was being remodeled.

“Obviously, he’s pretty devastated by what happened,” Bell said. “They had personal items and so forth. … It’s fortunate nobody else was there.”

Fire officials say rural homeowners would be wise to install sprinkler systems and alarms in their homes.

Chesrown didn’t build the log home but purchased it with the ranch property. He had the property logged, and a defensible space was cleared around the home to protect it from wildfires. He also had his own small tanker truck at the ranch for firefighting, but there was no sprinkler system.

Sprinkler systems make a dramatic difference, said Jim Lyon, public information officer for Kootenai County Fire and Rescue.

“Research really supports that damages are much less,” he said. “It’s the difference of having damage to one room or losing an entire home.”