Investigators Put to Test of Fire to Prepare for Dry Season

FRIANT, Calif. —  With the prospects of ravaging wildfires in drought-dry California in the next few months, arson investigators are getting a refresher course on how to detect blazes that are set on purpose.

Last year was the worst year on record for wildfires in California, with more than 25,000 blazes and 580,000 acres charred. Property damage and suppression costs totaled in the tens of millions of dollars.

Because of the continuing drought, this year could be worse.

The California Conference of Arson Investigators, acutely aware of the drought conditions, met in Fresno recently to learn about how wildfires get started, who starts them and why.

The conference drew more than 160 participants, from volunteers for small fire departments in remote Northern California counties to insurance company experts to investigators for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Burned Plots Studied

The investigators spent one day studying 31 half-acre plots of grassland below Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River northeast of Fresno. Each plot had been set afire by a different method to allow the investigators to sharpen their skills.

At one of the plots, a small clot of arson investigators hovered at the edge of the charred field of weeds and grasses looking for clues to the origin of the blaze.

“There it is,” said one, pointing at the crumbled remains of a burned-out matchbook that had been ignited by a lighted cigarette tucked inside the cover.

“Each fire has what we call burn indicators,” said the wildlife seminar instructor, Steve Robertson, who works for the California Division of Forestry in San Diego.

Robertson says he has investigated thousands of wildfires in the last 22 years. He is still not sure how an arsonist’s mind works.

The pyromaniac, a person who impulsively sets fires, is the one who scares Robertson.

“There’s no real reason for it,” he said. “Whatever the reason (pyromaniacs set fires), it’s locked deep inside of them.”

Robertson said there are also professional arsonists, who are hired to set fires in insurance scams, and the “vanity arsonists,” such as security guards who set small fires so they can put them out and gain some recognition or credit.

Doug Allen, a California Division of Forestry fire prevention officer in Riverside, said the typical pyromaniac is male, 18 to 24 years old, a loner with few friends and often jobless.

Arsonists who are caught, Allen said, often admit to setting 200, 300, or even 400 fires. He noted that the infamous “Son of Sam” murderer in New York City claimed he had set more than 2,000 arson fires.

California’s most famous modern arsonist, Allen said, is Patrick Russ, who set more than 1,400 fires in the 1960s, including one wildfire that killed four Santa Barbara firefighters. Allen said Russ set about half the fires for money and “the rest for the hell of it.”

Courts Get Tougher

Allen said the courts are finally getting tougher on arsonists. He remembers when a convicted arsonist might get 30 days. He said he was recently able to get a six-year prison term for an arsonist convicted of setting 28 fires.

The professional arsonists are extremely difficult to catch but fortunately focus most of their attention on buildings and usually have no interest in setting forest fires.

“I’ve always said the true professional arsonist is almost impossible to catch. They often leave no clues at all,” said Phil Fry, an investigator for the Alameda County district attorney’s office.

Dick Ford, a retired California Division of Forestry arson expert who has written a book on the subject, said the best protection against wildlife fires “is to prevent them in the first place.”

He said rural homeowners who do not take all possible safety precautions, including cutting dry weeds and keeping a fire extinguisher handy, “will be asking for trouble this year. It could be a real bad one.”