Wisconsin fire raises questions
By TIM KANE -
tkane@nwherald.com
WOODSTOCK – A man charged in the burning down of his vacant house last month also owned a business that burned down more than two years ago in Sharon, Wis., according to news reports, police and fire officials.
The cause of the Wisconsin fire remains under investigation, and authorities investigating each fire have been in communication with each other.
Yogeshkumar R. Patel, 46, owned a home at 1340 Sandpiper Lane in Woodstock that was empty and on the market for 18 months when it burned down in December, police said.
Patel has been charged with two counts of arson related to the fire at the house he owned because the fire damaged a next-door residence.
Fire Chief Ralph Webster, with the Woodstock Fire-Rescue District, said he was suspicious about the blaze 15 minutes after he arrived at the scene, about 9:30 a.m. Dec. 18.
“It was a fast-moving fire with multiple points of origin,” Webster said. “We found traces of accelerants, flammable liquids. We connected the dots.”
Deputy Chief Terry Menzel said firefighters found a gasoline storage can inside the house.
“It was an empty house,” Menzel said. “No furniture, no electrical appliances plugged in, no fireplace. A dog from the state fire marshal signaled to us that he detected hydrocarbons, gasoline or kerosene or butane ... ”
Patel owned Ed’s Sharon Food Mart in Sharon, also known as Ed’s IGA, that was destroyed by fire late at night Nov. 19, 2006, according to news reports.
Sharon is just across the Wisconsin border, northwest of Harvard.
Patel’s business was called a “downtown anchor and a landmark in this southern Walworth County village,” according to a story that ran in the Janesville (Wis.) Gazette.
According to news reports, firefighters emptied 300,000 gallons from Sharon’s water tower and about 200,000 gallons of water that was trucked by neighboring departments to fight the blaze.
More than 20 fire departments responded. Firefighters dumped more water than usual on the fire to save nearby buildings. The heat was intense.
“We’re aware of the situation [the home fire in Woodstock and the charges against Patel], Sharon police Chief Wolfgang Nitsch said. “The fire in Sharon has been an active investigation. The investigation has remained open for a variety of reasons.”
Sgt. Richard Johns said that Sharon police had been in contact with Woodstock police, making inquiries into the fire that destroyed the house on Sandpiper Lane.
Patel is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on the Woodstock arson charge. Reached this week, Patel said he didn’t know how he would plead in the local case and hung up the phone when asked about the fire in Sharon.
Renee Swenson, a waitress at Coffee Cup Cafe in Sharon, said the town hadn’t been the same since the fire. It was the start of the economic demise of the town with about 1,500 residents.
Where Ed’s Sharon Food Mart once stood now is a vacant lot, and people either shop at a gas station “out on the highway” or travel to Walworth or Darien to shop for groceries, she said.
“It was a historic building,” Swenson said. “Now it’s a hole, a vacant lot. People don’t seem to come down here anymore. It’s a sad thing.”
Mark Ruosch heads the town’s volunteer fire department. His full-time job is running an insurance office around the corner from the vacant lot that used to be Ed’s.
“That fire took the heart right out of this town,” Ruosch said.
