Ojai Man Suspected of Setting 5 Fires Arrested

OJAI —  Authorities arrested an oil rig worker Tuesday on suspicion of setting five brush fires in the Ojai area “for the excitement,” including a 145-acre fire June 29.

Police took suspected serial arsonist Kenneth Allen Lee of Ojai into custody after raiding his East Eucalyptus Street apartment Tuesday morning and finding unspecified evidence linking the 35-year-old to blazes set over the past 12 months, said Sgt. John Fitzgerald of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

“He was seen [by firefighters] at some of the fire locations watching,” Fitzgerald said, adding that setting fires, “was done more for the excitement of the firefighting activity.”

The June 29 fire--the most recent in Ojai Valley--led to a massive response with air tankers, helicopters and more than 100 people fighting the slow-moving blaze that could be clearly seen from Ojai moving across the foothills of the Topa Topa Mountains that surround the city.

A “homemade incendiary device” caused that fire and at least one of two small fires Lee is suspected of setting May 1 on Gridley Road just east of Ojai, Fitzgerald said.

Investigators still have not determined what was used to start that third fire and two other fires linked to Lee--a fire near Pine Mountain on Aug. 18, 1995, that burned less than an acre and a 15-acre blaze April 30 on Shelf Road just north of the city.

Authorities are calling Lee’s arrest critical with the worst of the fire season yet to come this fall.

An arson task force formed in the wake of April’s Grand fire, which scorched 10,000 acres between Fillmore and Santa Paula, is being credited with the arrest. The task force comprises investigators from the Sheriff’s Department, county Fire Department and U.S. Forest Service. The Grand fire, which occurred several weeks before the official fire season, is the largest fire that early in the year in Ventura County history.

Kevin Nestor, chief investigator with the county Fire Department, said officials had identified a pattern among several of the brush fires thought to be arson-related that have occurred in the Ojai Valley in recent years.

Though Lee is only charged with setting five fires, “he has not been eliminated from setting other arson fires,” Fitzgerald said.

Lee, who was booked into Ventura County Jail on five counts of felony arson, is scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in Ventura Municipal Court. Bail is set at $20,000.

When contacted by telephone, his wife, Julianne, said she did not know anything about her husband’s arrest before abruptly hanging up. Fitzgerald said Lee, his wife and young daughter have lived at the Eucalyptus Street apartment for about five years.

Four of the five blazes Lee is suspected of starting burned near popular walking and jogging trails just north of Ojai. Those fires prompted some residents to request the area be closed as a precaution, but county fire officials rejected the request.

“The more people we have out there watching and questioning [others] the better,” Nestor said.

The county received $10,000 in federal grants earlier this year for a program aimed at stopping and catching suspected arsonists.