WOODINVILLE, Wash., March 3, 2008
Eco-Terror Eyed In Washington State Arson
4 Multimillion-Dollar Show Homes Set Ablaze; Earth Liberation Front Sign Left At Scene
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Play CBS Video Video 'Street Of Dreams' In Flames "CBS News RAW": Four large model homes are engulfed in flames in a development north of Woodinville, Wash. Firefighters, who had to transport water to the scene, attempt to keep the fire at bay.
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The Street of Dreams is an annual showcase of luxury homes in the Seattle area. (CBS)
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Firefighters pour water onto burning houses at the scene of where four multimillion dollar homes burned Monday, March 3, 2008, in Woodinville, Wash, a suburb of Seattle. A sign with the initials of a radical environmental group was found at the scene, an official said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
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Interactive FIRE! A look at major fires and their victims, arson facts, and those who fight the flames.
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Photo Essay Luxury Homes Torched FBI investigating fires that gutted multi-million dollar homes near Seattle as potential domestic terrorism.
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Fire Chief Rick Eastman of Snohomish County District 7 said fire crews discovered the devices inside the houses and were able to remove them.
A total of five devices were found, reports CBS affiliate KIRO-TV in Seattle. A device in one home apparently didn’t go off.
The FBI said the fires in the four homes were being investigated as a potential domestic terrorism act. Agents from the FBI and Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were assisting local authorities in the investigation.
No injuries were reported from the fires, which began before dawn in the wooded subdivision and were still smoldering by midmorning.
The sign, a white sheet that had the initials of the Earth Liberation Front in scraggly red letters, mocked claims the luxury homes on the "Street of Dreams" were environmentally friendly, according to video images of the sign aired by KING-TV.
"Built Green? Nope black!" the sign said.
The fires started at a strip of unoccupied, furnished luxury model homes where developers show off the latest in high-end housing, interior design and landscaping. The homes are later sold.
The blazes were set in multiple places in separate houses, Eastman said. He confirmed that the ELF sign was found at the scene of the fires in the community north of Woodinville, where some homes were still under construction.
The ELF, or Earth Liberation Front, is a loosely organized collection of radical environmentalists authorities say is responsible for other arsons in the Northwest.
ELF is considered a domestic terrorist organization by the FBI, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.
A woman is currently trial in Tacoma for a suspected ELF fire at the University of Washington in 2001. Briana Waters, a 32-year-old violin teacher, is accused of serving as a lookout while her friends planted a devastating fire bomb.
The fire is one of the most notorious in a string of arsons that investigators say were perpetrated from the mid-1990s to 2001 by ELF.
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No one was hurt in the arson at UW, but its Center for Urban Horticulture was destroyed and rebuilt at a cost of $7 million. It was targeted because the ELF activists mistakenly believed researchers there were genetically engineering trees, investigators said.It's very disappointing to take a situation where we're tying to promote good building practices — Built Green practices — and that it's destroyed. It's extremely disappointing. I don't understand the logic in that.
Doug Barnes, Northwest division president of Centex HomesThe homes are in a development near the headwaters of Bear Creek, which is home to endangered chinook salmon. Opponents of the development had questioned whether the luxury homes could pollute the creek and an aquifer that is a drinking water source, and whether enough was done to protect nearby wetlands.
One of the people involved in the 2007 Street of Dreams said the homes used "Built Green" standards such as water-pervious sidewalks, super-insulated walls and windows and products made with recycled materials, such carpet pads. Advertising for last summer's Street of Dreams show focused on the environmentally friendly aspects of the homes, which were smaller than some of the huge houses featured in years past.
"It's very disappointing to take a situation where we're tying to promote good building practices - Built Green practices - and that it's destroyed. It's extremely disappointing. I don't understand the logic in that," said Doug Barnes, the Northwest division president of Centex Homes in Kirkland and the immediate past president of the Master Builders Association of King & Snohomish Counties. He was a judge at the 2007 Street of Dreams.
The homes that burned were between 4,200 and 4,750 square feet in size, with prices up to nearly $2 million. None of the five showcase homes from the Street of Dreams last summer had been sold, said Grey Lundberg, a builder of one of the houses.
©MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 147 CommentsELF does just that--it''s part of their MO and grab for attention. The arson could be a set-up by bankrupt builders, but you can''t rule out ELF as they have a track record of exactly this kind of destruction. And "terrorism" is accurate--the acts are meant to create fear. ELF monkeys are "true believers" every bit as much as the Islamic terrorists.
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now i know how liberals can see where these islamic terrorists are coming from..
End of story
let''''s face it, the ELF wouldn''''t have to leave a sign for the FBI to know it was them -- this is just another bogus propaganda piece.
Posted by king77shaw at 08:32 PM : Mar 03, 2008
Great point
I lost a friend of 20 years this past weekend, a 56 year old to an apparent heart attack after he was sent home with pain killers and a diagnosis of having had a "silent heart attack".
Some investors and insurance corporation administrators can pocket the savings of denying hospitalization and aggressive intervention that saves lives and instead put their private profits toward one of these cold boxes of gluttony but the meaning of life and love will not be found inside.
As a people instead of toiling in search of a "street of dreams" we would be a happier people if we consumed less pain killers, anti-depressants, lived more simply and built communities of dreams instead of huge gaudy boxes of debt on acreage filled with the material fluff of electronic devices and mass produced clutter that alienates and divides humanity.
Our economy is built on much ado about nothing.
let''s face it, the ELF wouldn''t have to leave a sign for the FBI to know it was them -- this is just another bogus propaganda piece.
Nature itself does an awful job with the environment. All the water that gets wasted running down the rivers unless they are dammed up. Gosh golly, volcanoes pump so much filth into the atmosphere it''s unreal.
It is rather interesting however that teflon and flame retardant are two of a myriad of chemicals that have been found in the pristine mountain lakes at toxic levels the Olympic national park and North Cascades National park, both "protected" areas in Washington State. Oh, well, privatize it all and make it one big happy hoe house to sell to the highest bidder. It''s ''merica.
Posted by libsrweak
Speaking for yourself?
Acts of violence by groups like this(if they actually did commit this crime and it wasn''t a set up by the developer) are just a sign of ignorance. They can''t vocalize their gripes so they act out by doing stupid things like burn down houses.
Note to ELF: If you want to conserve the environment won''t you do something productive with yourself and others may follow. Destroying property and burning down houses that spew God knows what into our atmosphere and then having firefighters using millions of gallons of water to put it out isn''t showing much on your true stance as an environmentalist.
run for your lives!, orange alert!, orange alert!
thank god for the surge
That said, IMO ELF is obviously a bunch a morons, because acts like this only turn the general public against environmentalists and, it sounds like, attempts were made to make these houses ''earth friendly.''
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