We may have another carsonist on our hands, or else the same individual who set fire to two Teslas in SoMa in February is back at it.
There was a spate of fires on San Francisco streets early Sunday morning, and as KRON4 reports, four cars were torched in separate incidents.
It's not clear if one car was involved in each incident, but both debris and vehicles were apparently set ablaze in four separate incidents Sunday: on the 400 block of Jones Street near Eddy, in the area of Haight Street and Octavia Boulevard, on the 1300 Block of Market Street, and in the area of Van Ness Avenue and Hickory Street.
Police did not disclose how close together in time each of these alleged arson incidents occurred, but they appear connected.
Car arsons were not so common in the city the last ten years or so. But then came the Waymo set on fire in Chinatown in February, and the two Teslas that were torched later that month.
Earlier this month we learned that a 14-year-old boy is being charged in connection with the Waymo arson.
A prolific carsonist was at work in the Castro neighborhood a decade back — the culprit was determined to be a well known character in the neighborhood connected to a murder case who was later arrested, and was released from jail in 2016.
More recently, neighbors in Hayes Valley near Octavia Boulevard have been complaining about encampment fires on side streets since last summer, and both a four-alarm blaze at a building under construction in August and a tent fire in October had a neighborhood group raising alarm bells with the city.
One particular encampment at the time, at Octavia and Hickory, was blamed for several fires on the street.
"We don’t know exactly how all of these fires started, but we do know how dangerous they are to our community," said Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association President Jennifer Laska in a letter to the city last August.
Anyone with information about this past weekend's fires is asked to call SFPD investigators at 415-553-0123.
Previously: Are the Waymo and Tesla Arsonists the Same Person?
Photo: Matt Hearne