7 fires in Antioch being investigated as potential arson

ANTIOCH, Calif. (KGO) -- A series of seven fires in Antioch is being investigated as possible arson. Contra Costa County fire officials are now asking for your help.

"I heard like crackling and loud noises so I looked out our balcony window and I just saw a huge fire and I told the whole family and we ran out of the house as fast as we can," said Antioch resident Shane Davis, who shot video as his father used a garden hose to spray a fire outside of the Indonesian Baptist Church in Antioch.

Monday morning's fire along Lone Tree Way was number seven in a string of suspicious fires.

"I don't know why they would do that, I mean what's the point of doing it," questioned Davis. "What harm could a church do to them?"

All of the fires are within a three-mile radius.

"We do believe there is something to that and that there may be somebody running around who's setting a bunch of fires," said Contra Costa County Fire Marshal Robert Marshall.

"It just happened out of nowhere. It was kind of crazy," said Lidell Jones Junior, who recorded video of the vegetation fire that threatened his home Sunday night.

He says firefighters were already near Somerset Place because of another fire.

"They were right on time because this tree here was almost going to tip over. A whole bunch of branches fell on the roof. So by the time they got here it was just touching the house," Jones added.

Nobody has been injured. The fires only have proximity and time frame in common.

"The thing we don't really know yet is whether they are all related to one another," Marshall told ABC7 News.

Contra Costa County fire investigators are asking any potential witnesses to come forward.