Police agencies say they’ve exhausted all leads but remain committed to solving case, urge anyone with information to reach out

By Buffy Pollock, Rogue Valley Times

Local law enforcement agencies say they’d love nothing more than a break in the investigation into the cause of the devastating Almeda Fire of Sept. 8, 2020.

Sadly, four years since the fire destroyed more than 2,500 homes and burned 3,200 acres between Ashland and Phoenix, investigators don’t know much more than they did immediately after the fire.

Ashland police Chief Tighe O’Meara said the last relevant update, two years ago, was still the best information.

The fire began at 11:04 a.m. in a dry field along Almeda Street in Ashland. Driven by strong winds, it traveled quickly in a northwest direction.

Before containment, three deaths were tallied and the fire would be deemed human-caused. Ashland Police Department launched a criminal investigation with assistance from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State Police.

In the early days, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies contributed to the case, with more than two dozen investigators involved at one point, serving a slew of search warrants, collecting evidence, creating a suspect profile and interviewing well over 150 individuals in four separate states.

O’Meara said his agency and the sheriff’s office continue to follow new leads and exhaust old ones.

“There simply just isn’t anything new to say. What we offered two years ago is still the best, most up-to-date information in the case. I wish we had more to offer, but we just don’t,” O’Meara said this week.

“I can say that this is never gonna be a closed case until we can wrap it up and really say that we’re never touching this again. It’s like the (David) Grubbs (murder) investigation from almost 13 years ago. It’s still an open case and we’re still going to work leads when they come in. … I’ll never say that’s a closed case, just like I’ll never say the Almeda case is closed, until we’ve taken it to the furthest extent possible with a prosecution.”

Sheriff Nate Sickler said his agency, too, is as committed as it was four years ago to helping to solve the case. Sickler said Wednesday’s fire along the interstate in Ashland was eerily reminiscent of the devastating fire four years ago.

“I went down there yesterday,” he said Thursday. “We all did. It was just like, ‘Oh no.’”

Sickler said his detectives were still providing assistance to Ashland police by helping track down new leads in the Almeda Fire investigation and responding to any new tips that come in.

“As far as the investigation goes, Ashland is the lead, and they have been. We are always willing to help and have been helping since the beginning. We don’t have anything new that we can report on, but we’re always asking for the public’s help. If anybody has any information they’re willing to share with us — anything they think could be new or even old information they haven’t shared before — we’re always happy to look at that,” Sickler said.

“Right now, we’ve exhausted all leads and all avenues, so we’re just kind of honestly in a holding pattern waiting for something else to look at. You have to remember the magnitude of this case. It’s a really big case, so it’s important that we do solve this. It will forever be important to all of us that that happens.”

Sheriff’s office spokesperson Aaron Lewis said new leads trickle in from time to time. The second of two tips this year was provided to detectives during the week of the 2024 Jackson County Fair.

“One of our detectives is still really tied into the case, and they received a lead that came in from the fair, so they ran that down and spent hours on that one lead,” Lewis said Thursday. “I think it needs to be said this is still an active investigation and any leads that come in, we’re helping run them down and working with Ashland as the lead investigators. … This is an enormous investigation, and it’s really important to all of us.”

Sickler urged anyone with information, however small, to reach out to Ashland police or his agency.

“You never know what could be the thread that we need. … Somebody always knows something, and we’re just going to hope, at some point, we’ll be able to get that information and bring — and ‘closure’ isn’t the right term because this was such a huge deal, and so many people lost everything — but something like closure, if we can, for our community,” Sickler said.

“We are always working on it, and we will run down all leads, and we continue to encourage the public, if they have any information, to come forward and bring that to us. We will have this as an open investigation until we solve it.”

Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.