Suspicious Fires Destroy Two Homes, Kill One Man

Suspicious fires on Dead Indian Memorial Road destroy two homes and kill one man. These fires happened within an hour and only six miles down the road from each other.

The first fire broke out around 2:40 this morning and destroyed a cabin near the Keno access road. Neighbors say the cabin is used as a vacation property and the owners were not there at the time.

Within an hour a house on the nearby summit went up in flames killing one man.

The sheriff's office wouldn't let anyone but fire fighters and investigators up to the site which they're now treating as a crime scene.

"Two structure fires, close together in time, we have a confirmed fatality in one structure, you know, we've got some unusual circumstances so we're looking into those," says Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters.

The identity of the man who died in the second fire will not be released until he can be positively identified.

Both homes are total losses. Firefighters say about the same time 911 calls starting coming in for the second fire crews working the first fire spotted flames over the hill.

They say in each case the homes were engulfed in flames when they arrived.

Several fire fighting and law enforcement agencies are lending investigators to the case.