MALTBY, WASH. — Radical environmentalists torched three multimillion-dollar homes Monday that developers had touted as examples of "green" building, authorities said.
The predawn blazes destroyed three furnished homes that ranged in size from 4,200 to 4,750 square feet. They were built at the end of a wooded cul-de-sac as part of a luxury home development featured in Seattle's Street of Dreams home tour. Two other homes suffered smoke damage.
Police and FBI investigators said a spray-painted sign bearing the initials of the Earth Liberation Front mocked developers' claims that the homes were environmentally friendly.
"Built Green?" the sign read. "Nope black! McMansions in RCDs [rural cluster developments] r not green. ELF."
The attack coincided with the trial of a former member of the Earth Liberation Front now in its fourth week in Tacoma, Wash. Briana Waters, 32, of Oakland faces up to 35 years in prison if she is convicted of setting a 2001 fire at the University of Washington.
Federal authorities consider the Earth Liberation Front a domestic terrorist organization.
It was clear the fires were deliberately set, said Rick Eastman, fire chief of Snohomish County District 7. Eastman said he held back his firefighters, letting the blazes burn out on their own, because he feared the homes might be booby-trapped. No injuries were reported.
Incendiary devices were found inside the homes, fire officials said, and the blazes will be investigated as acts of domestic terrorism.
The fires will probably intensify the debate over growth and preservation, and bring new tension between mainstream environmental activists and more radical elements.
Despite a nationwide building slowdown, housing construction in some Seattle suburbs, particularly north and east of Lake Washington, has continued unabated.
The homes were part of a planned development called Quinn's Crossing at Yarrowbay Communities and were featured in Seattle's Street of Dreams home tour last summer.
Although many cities hold tours of luxury homes, Seattle's event claims to be "the most popular and highest-attended single site luxury home and garden tour in the U.S."
The homes on the tour are often grouped by themes. The burned homes were listed as "green" buildings. After a period in which the public can tour the homes, they are put up for sale.
