ATHERTON (BCN) — An urban search and rescue team has determined that no one died in a suspicious fire in Atherton on Wednesday, Menlo Park Fire Protection District officials said today.
Fire crews ended the search at 5 p.m. Wednesday at what was an abandoned home at 29 Shearer Drive, fire officials said.
A passerby reported the fire at the single-story 3,000-square-foot home at 4:50 a.m. When fire crews arrived, the home was engulfed in flames, fire officials said.
Battalion Chief Jim Stevens ordered firefighters to take a defensive approach to extinguishing the one-alarm blaze to avoid placing the lives of firefighters at risk and because the building could not be saved, fire officials said.
Crews from Menlo Park and Redwood City extinguished the fire, picked up fire lines at 9:45 a.m. and put a fire watch in place until 5 p.m., according to the fire district.
Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said the district’s official determination of the fire is “suspicious” because there was no power to the home at the time of the fire.
“Vacant structures with no working utilities don’t just catch themselves on fire,” Schapelhouman said in a statement.
Fire crews have responded before to the home to extinguish a previous fire and fire officials said the blaze may have been set by squatters.
The urban search and rescue team brought in a human remains discovery dog and handler to search in the home, according to the fire district. The dog and handler arrived at 11:30 a.m. and the dog alerted officials to possible human remains in the basement, fire district officials said.
However, crews from the town of Atherton and a fire restoration company pumped four to five feet of water from the basement and nothing was found. The dog and handler ended the search at 5 p.m., fire officials said.
Town officials have erected a fence around the site and red-tagged the home for demolition. Fire officials said they have turned over the arson investigation to the Atherton Police Department.
Police and a fire district investigator will be working together to determine the cause and origin of the blaze, according to the fire district.