A Lake County family escaped a fire that destroyed a new mobile home Saturday in Elem Indian Colony that officials are investigating as a case of arson.
Three men in the family were sleeping in the home in the hillside community above Clearlake Oaks at about 3:30 a.m. when a man sleeping on a couch woke up to flames in the trailer's kitchen, said the man's cousin, Augustine Garcia, 29, of Santa Rosa.

Northshore Fire Protection District firefighters were called to the area at 4 a.m., firefighters said.

Family members alleged that a trio of brothers from an estranged branch of their family had been harassing the men throughout the day.
“The people were talking to them all night, walking by the home, flashing flashlights through the windows, saying ‘When you go to sleep we're going to get you,'” Garcia said.

Garcia said they believe the brothers set the blaze with two Molotov cocktails, one thrown under the unit and another thrown at a wall.
Everyone got out of the trailer before it burned to the ground, family and fire officials said.

Lake County Sheriff Francisco Rivero said investigators were still trying to determine if the fire was intentionally set. Deputies were making special patrols in the area, he said.

Garcia's mother lives in a trailer adjacent to the one that burned. The family had just moved into the FEMA-issued trailer home Friday when it was delivered to the area, he said.

The home was among many distributed by a lottery system to tribes across the country and one of three expected to arrive for Elem families, he said.
However the trailer's arrival stoked tensions among split factions within the Elem tribe that have been estranged for at least 15 years, family members and sheriff's officials said.

More recently, the two sides are in conflict over the election of tribe chairman.
Garcia said his family felt they hadn't received a quick enough response from deputies.

However Rivero said that his deputies knew of the conflict that might be sparked due to the trailer and had done their best to be on hand.
“We have been making security checks throughout the night and continue to do so, we're on alert,” Rivero said.

“This friction and these issues have been stewing for decades,” he said