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Catching arsonist without tipoff ‘exceptionally difficult’

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Orange:

Orange County authorities appealed to the public today for tips to help them catch the arsonist who set the Santiago wildfire.

‘We’ve had 250 tips. None have led to anybody we believe to be the suspect in this case,’ said Sheriff Michael S. Carona.

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Finding the arsonist without help from the public will be ‘exceptionally difficult,’ said Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather.

‘We have a number of leads to follow in this complex incident and we desperately want to arrest the person or people who did this,’ he said.

The fire has burned 23,000 acres and destroyed 11 homes. The governor’s office, the FBI and the ATF have each pledged $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible for the fire. The total reward will be $150,000.

Officials said they are bringing to the investigation as many resources as possible.

‘The FBI will bring to bear all of its national resources ... to make sure that we track, apprehend and put this person or persons behind bars where they belong,’ said FBI Special Agent Herb Brown.

The FBI has 20 agents working on the case. The ATF and the FBI will employ cause and origin experts and behavioral scientists.

Carona said the unified command structure -- in this case, the fire authority, FBI, ATF and Sheriff’s Department -- is similar to the one that helped catch the man convicted in the case of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion case, whose 2002 kidnap-murder in Orange County captivated the nation.

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The fire started on the Irvine side of Santiago Canyon Road at 6 p.m. on Sunday. While officials previously said there were three points of origin for the fire, today they said there were only two. Once set, the fire grew very fast, Prather said.

Within 15 minutes of the first report, the fire had spread three miles, he said.

Said Prather: ‘The person or people who did this are exceptionally lucky or they have some knowledge of when they can do the most damage when you set a fire.’

‘There was evidence found at the scene that led investigators to believe this was an arson,’ Prather said.

Usually, the evidence is not as obvious, he said. He would not elaborate.

Prather said he wondered if the response to the Orange County fire took resources away from fighting other fires.

‘This arsonist prohibited us from responding to our neighbors for help,’ Prather said.

-- Hector Becerra and Jennifer Delson

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