Arson fire is 'most unacceptable' crime, sheriff says

A brush fire that killed two firefighters and has burned more than 147,000 acres was an “act of arson,” authorities said Thursday as they launched a homicide investigation.

Officials said they concluded that the largest brush fire in the history of Los Angeles County was deliberately set after investigators examined forensic evidence from the point of origin off Angeles Crest Highway north of La Cañada Flintridge.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said investigators don’t want to release any details about the cause because they fear it could hurt their ability to find and prosecute the arsonist. 

The sheriff stressed that the homicide probe is still wide open. The Station fire could have been set deliberately by someone wanting to cause damage or it could have been sparked accidentally by someone acting negligently, Baca said.

In either case, the department could pursue homicide charges, he said.

“If an arsonist did this, everyone should be angry about it," Baca told The Times. "This is one of the most unacceptable crimes.”

On Wednesday, investigators converged on a turnoff near Mile Marker 29 of Angeles Crest Highway near a scorched oak tree, using wire mesh sifters to search through the ash.

Yellow tape cordoned off the area and authorities blocked the highway, turning away even Caltrans workers and earthmovers.

Sources close to the investigation told The Times that the probe has been complicated somewhat by the fact the fire burned over the point of origin twice, making evidence collection more difficult than normal.

--Ari B. Bloomekatz, Andrew Blankstein, Richard Winton and Cara Mia Di Massa

Comments

[jodie]

There has to be some way to police fire-prone areas to prevent or, at least after the fact, prosecute arson. Surely in our tech savvy culture someone can address this problem! How many big fires in the last ten years have been declared arson?
I think almost every one. The Las Virgenes fire a few years ago was blamed on sparking power lines, but that was about the only exception. How many arsonists were apprehended? I remember two incidences, the one in San Jacinto where the firemen died on the the steep hillside and the man who set a fire because he was lost. Surely we can do better at this! The risk of brushfires is never going to go away if we live in Southern California. And with the risk of fire comes the lure to arsonists. Maybe we can actually do some preventative action to reduce the risk? I hope so!

[Robert]

Spend your time looking for kidnappers and child rapists, the fire will burn out.

[nikki]

as jodie correctly states, almost all wild fires are blames on arsonists, this probably stems from a desire to blame it on somebody, however the reality is that, asides from maybe accidental fires started by humans, most of them are due to climatic changes commonly referred to as global warming or heating, but somehow nobody wants to consider this fact, this is called denial, besides many areas in California are arid to start with and prone to fires

[Neath17]

I don't know how people in Southern California can handle all this fire stuff!

[John]

You can always get another house or car so let the fires burn. How can anyone be charged with manslaughter for a fire they lit three weeks ago killing someone now? You may as well arrest everyone in Los Angeles for every murder because if they had done something even slightly differently in the last twenty years that murder wouldn't have happened in the here and now, of course another one to someone else might have. When you are up against a natural force like fire it matters not one jot who started it because it is the fire that does the damage not the person lighting it. The case of arson in a building is quite a different thing, there you could say someone had intent to do damage to the specific property or to specific people inside but to ask someone to foresee the consequences of lighting a small fire for a laugh in the middle of nowhere is to say they should be able to have the deductive reasoning powers of God and that isn't very likely is it? Who knows, a fire that kills two people today might have killed twenty people five years from now had the brush been left unburnt. Who wants to play God and say that isn't so? Who wants to cast the first stone and say someone is evil for killing two when I could say they were good for saving twenty? You can't have a beautiful Nature in these areas without accepting the power of fire to help create it, whoever started the fires, whether from the clouds or from the ground, are agents of that renewal and lets face it we have more than enough people on this planet already and if some of them choose to get in the way of renewal that's their choice but a silly one as I say.

[John Roach]

If this fire was deliberately set the perpetrator deserves all that the law allows but could it be accidental? I've noticed that the authorities are quick to declare arson as the cause of these fires and cover their butts by withholding information that might " compromise their investigation".Just a thought!

[HOMERUN]

Another one of the most unacceptable crimes is the use of false evidence on a person to deceive a jury and public by public funded court employees...another one of the most unacceptable crimes is tampering with evidence from the jury and court record that no crime occurred ...tampering with evidence to a jury has to be one of the most unacceptable crimes to our justice system , Constitution, penal code and U.S. Codes. Crooked scales of justice puts everyone's safety at risk and in danger.

[Donald Frantz]

As a former resident of Southern Cal now residing in North Carolina, I remember a great many wildfires. If this is in fact an arson fire whoever is responsible needs to spend the rest of his/her life UNDER the jail.
By the way...just what IS an acceptable crime???

[Therese S.]

A cigarette thrown out the window carelessly could be classified as arson too. That would fall under the category of criminal negligence. People know better but act without thinking. As for prevention, I don't know how you'd do that. Satellite surveillance is possible I suppose, but could be considered intrusive, reminiscent of a police state mentality.

[Luc]

Fires in Southern California are natural, and even necessary from Nature's point of view. Even if no arsonist trigger them, the fires will start anyway, for whatever reason, lightning, etc. What should be done then, is taking this as a fact, consider the wild fires as something normal and expected, a little bit like the hurricanes on the east coast, and act accordingly : building efficient anti-fire walls between all built zones and the forests, and giving up on living in the middle of the forest.

[nazcalito]

I suspect these "arson" claims are an attempt to divert attention away from the officials who didn't take the fire seriously enough until it got huge.

[Julio]

Wow,
As much as global warming has to do with making the possibility for fire worse, saying just because the fuel is there should be no reason to find out who is starting these fires is mind-boggling. Yes global warming is real, yes people have built houses close to potential fire zones, this does not give anybody "permission" to start or much less ignore a fire - ie.let it burn out. Asynine.

I think it is safe to presume most if not all of our yearly fires in the LA basin are caused by human hands, be it negligence or deliberate. Either reason should be enough for us to try to prevent this, controlled fires are a much better prospect than a random wildfire.

[Mufon]

Lots of odd posts. I knew that Times readers traditionally hated the police, but now firefighters are in their sights too?

[Sean Meaney]

Yes arson is a high-end crime. But lets get it right.

Even in the Australian Bushfire experience, the gross criminal negligence of local government, in pursuing a policy of enforcing laws preventing clearing of properties properties of flamable materials because to do so would damage the 'natural asthetic' of the region, nor having cleared necessary fire control breaks of up to a kilometre in width to protect their communities, has been more of a contributing factor to massive loss of life and property than an initital act of Arson would be.

The real cause of the Bushfire Deathtoll?
1. Corporate neglect of Privatized Power and Water Services infrastructure (including the regular clearing of powerline corridors of flamable materials).
2. State Government Environmental protection policies (which reduced the regularity of managed burnoff to reduce fuel loading by fire authorities).
3. Failure of Local governments to clear vital firebreaks around rural communities as well as their anti-land clearing legislation.

You are however unlikely to see the Local Aldermen hang for mass murder because that kind of accountabiliity has undesirable overtones for those further up the ladder of authority. Next thing you know, you are shooting State Premiers for the gross criminal negligence of their subbordinates and the monstrous criminality of their political and environmental policies.

So short of shooting elected leaders for resisting arrest under charge of Treason, there is little legal recourse for the few survivors - especially considering the the way entire family branches were wiped out.

In the end the inqiury into the matter has been little more than a whitewash designed to draw public anger away from the criminal negligence of the Authorities toward a sacrifical lamb. Perhaps why the identities of Arsonists were leaked by Police and Government before any trial could ever take place.