Tweet
Wildfires & Arson
DENVER (AP) - Thousands of southern Californians helplessly
watch their homes and hillsides devoured by flames and ask, "Who
could do this?"
The answer: Mostly careless hunters, campers, smokers,
trashburners. But also angry, bored kids. Drunks. Ghostly
psychopaths who vanish into the smoke. Too often - and most
disturbingly - firefighters themselves.
If history is any guide, it may take years to arrest those
believed largely responsible for a week of fire that has killed at
least 20 people and destroyed 2,300 homes in what could be
California's most expensive catastrophe. And they may never be
caught. The typical rate of solving wildfire arsons is less than 10
percent a year.
Authorities in California are circulating a composite sketch of
a young, long-haired, white man driving a light-colored van. He is
suspected of igniting at least one, if not more, of the 13 blazes
that have burned in a hellish corridor extending from the mountains
north of Los Angeles to San Diego and across the Mexican border.
Wildfire arson is a surprisingly common crime despite harsh
penalties. In California, it can carry a sentence of 10
years-to-life, plus murder charges when innocents die.
But it's one of the most difficult crimes to solve. That's
because investigators are confronted with an incomplete puzzle of
fragile clues like ashes, matchheads and tire tracks, which can be
obliterated in a single thunderstorm.
Witnesses are uncommon and their recollections hazy. In the
West, where overgrown forests extend for 100 miles (160 kilometers)
and mountains soar into the horizon, it's too easy to melt into the
rugged background.
"The arsonist could drive to an adjacent ridge to watch his
handiwork and you would never know," said Paul Steensland, a
senior special agent with the U.S. Forest Service. "If they are
serial arsonists, we will catch them. But it may take a number of
years."
The nation has averaged 103,112 wildfires annually over the past
10 years, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in
Boise, Idaho.
There are no firm numbers for wildfire arson incidents, arrests
and convictions. Even a clear distinction between accidental fires
and malicious ones is difficult to distinguish in the
record-keeping. Experts say there just are too many jurisdictions
and agencies to coordinate, from the Forest Service to county
volunteer brigades, law enforcement and even the military.
But the problem is obvious. Investigators agree that human
activities, not lightning, are responsible for 9 out of 10
wildfires. That breakdown remains constant even in drought years
like 2000 and 2002.
The easy part, investigators say, is finding the fires' physical
origins. Unlike structure fires, which tend to burn hottest where
they start, wildfires usually begin cooler.
They rapidly spread, propelled in a V-shape by the wind, terrain
and fuel. Investigators quickly work backward, narrowing the path
by reading scorch marks on trees and the direction in which intense
heat sucks the moisture from unburned leaves and needles,
"freezing" them like signposts.
About three-quarters of the human-caused fires result from
carelessness, fire investigators say. Hunters and hikers leave
smoldering campfires, or grass brushes against the hot muffler of
an off-road vehicle. When the ignition point of dry forest litter
is only 500 degrees Fahrenheit (260 Celsius), it takes just a few
seconds and a puff of wind for a spark to grow into a rising wall
of flame.
Investigators look into every reported fire, but how to
prosecute the accidents is left up to local officials.
San Diego authorities say one of this week's fires that killed
12 and burned more than 1,000 homes was sparked by a lost deer
hunter who set a signal blaze in the Cleveland National Forest. He
was cited with a misdemeanor.
But the number of accidental fires still leaves more than 23,000
blazes a year to the firebugs.
Sometimes the cops get lucky, like last year when they literally
bumped into Timothy Nicholas Terry of Eugene, Oregon, down the
trail from a smoke plume near the McKenzie River. Terry was charged
with setting three fires in September 2002. But his vehicle had
been reported near previous blazes, and authorities are
re-examining scores of fires on both sides of Interstate 5 over the
past five years.
Another statistical twist: Arsonists typically get charged only
for their last fire - the one that got them caught. But one arrest
can effectively solve hundreds of incidents spanning several years,
even if the statistics never reflect it.
"In San Luis Obispo, I arrested one guy who we knew set 600
fires," said Douglas Allen, who chairs the wildfire committee for
the International Association of Arson Investigators. Ironically,
wildfire forced Allen to evacuate his home near Lake Arrowhead,
California, on Wednesday.
"These people continue to set fires until they are caught,"
Allen said. "But one arrest can make a big difference."
The psychologists' profile of a typical woods arsonist is a
person marinating in bottled-up anger and intimidation. Except,
that is, for the intoxicating moment when the match strikes and the
flame flickers. Then he exults as the sirens wail and people flee,
terrified.
Fairfax, Virginia, forensic psychologist Neil S. Hibler says
that's when the firebug feels, "I did that. Man, I'm special."
"This is a coward's game," Hibler said.
Some are Beavis-style delinquents, like the seven Halloween
pranksters who lit the 2001 Red Bird fire in the Daniel Boone
National Forest in Kentucky. It left a firefighter in a wheelchair,
paralyzed by a falling black locust tree.
Disgruntled workers and ecoterrorists may seek revenge against
logging companies; for example, $50 million in timber in Louisiana
was torched in 400 separate blazes in 2000.
Yet others see profit, not destruction, in flames. In the 1990s,
investigators probed many blazes around depressed logging towns in
the Pacific Northwest, but there were no convictions.
In hard times, arson-as-public-works is tantalizing: The
government spends more than $1 million a day supporting fire crews,
contracting locally for everything from sandwiches to bulldozers.
And when the flames are extinguished, salvage logging of charred
timber takes years, generating hundreds of jobs and payrolls
topping $40 million.
But for investigators and homeowners alike, the most perverse
category of wildfire arsonist are the firefighters themselves.
The most celebrated case was John Orr, an arson sleuth for the
Glendale, California, fire department serving a life sentence for
setting a 1984 hardware store blaze that killed four people.
He also was convicted of conducting a remarkable arson campaign
that damaged 67 homes along with open land. He was arrested after
penning a novel, "Points of Origin," depicting a firefighter who
torched a hardware store and other businesses for sexual pleasure.
In 2002, firefighters were responsible for two of the nation's
largest wildfires.
In Arizona, Leonard Gregg, a contract firefighter, was sent to a
prison hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after being charged
with setting the Rodeo fire in the state's rugged eastern
mountains. At its worst, the inferno spread 50 miles (80
kilometers) wide; one local fire chief described it as "walking
down the aisles of hell." Containing it cost public agencies $43
million.
Prosecutors said Gregg confessed to setting fire to dry grass in
hopes of earning $8 an hour to extinguish the flames for the Bureau
of Indian Affairs.
In Colorado, former Forest Service seasonal worker Terry Barton
pleaded guilty to starting the Hayman Fire, which consumed 137,000
acres (54,800 hectares) southwest of Denver and destroyed 133
homes.
She claimed to be distraught over her crumbling marriage and
said she burned letters from her estranged husband in a campground
fire ring. Investigators still don't buy her story.
"I never found paper ash," Steensland said. "I did find three
matches stuck head-first into the ground, spaced a half-inch (a
centimeter) apart."
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
watch their homes and hillsides devoured by flames and ask, "Who
could do this?"
The answer: Mostly careless hunters, campers, smokers,
trashburners. But also angry, bored kids. Drunks. Ghostly
psychopaths who vanish into the smoke. Too often - and most
disturbingly - firefighters themselves.
If history is any guide, it may take years to arrest those
believed largely responsible for a week of fire that has killed at
least 20 people and destroyed 2,300 homes in what could be
California's most expensive catastrophe. And they may never be
caught. The typical rate of solving wildfire arsons is less than 10
percent a year.
Authorities in California are circulating a composite sketch of
a young, long-haired, white man driving a light-colored van. He is
suspected of igniting at least one, if not more, of the 13 blazes
that have burned in a hellish corridor extending from the mountains
north of Los Angeles to San Diego and across the Mexican border.
Wildfire arson is a surprisingly common crime despite harsh
penalties. In California, it can carry a sentence of 10
years-to-life, plus murder charges when innocents die.
But it's one of the most difficult crimes to solve. That's
because investigators are confronted with an incomplete puzzle of
fragile clues like ashes, matchheads and tire tracks, which can be
obliterated in a single thunderstorm.
Witnesses are uncommon and their recollections hazy. In the
West, where overgrown forests extend for 100 miles (160 kilometers)
and mountains soar into the horizon, it's too easy to melt into the
rugged background.
"The arsonist could drive to an adjacent ridge to watch his
handiwork and you would never know," said Paul Steensland, a
senior special agent with the U.S. Forest Service. "If they are
serial arsonists, we will catch them. But it may take a number of
years."
The nation has averaged 103,112 wildfires annually over the past
10 years, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in
Boise, Idaho.
There are no firm numbers for wildfire arson incidents, arrests
and convictions. Even a clear distinction between accidental fires
and malicious ones is difficult to distinguish in the
record-keeping. Experts say there just are too many jurisdictions
and agencies to coordinate, from the Forest Service to county
volunteer brigades, law enforcement and even the military.
But the problem is obvious. Investigators agree that human
activities, not lightning, are responsible for 9 out of 10
wildfires. That breakdown remains constant even in drought years
like 2000 and 2002.
The easy part, investigators say, is finding the fires' physical
origins. Unlike structure fires, which tend to burn hottest where
they start, wildfires usually begin cooler.
They rapidly spread, propelled in a V-shape by the wind, terrain
and fuel. Investigators quickly work backward, narrowing the path
by reading scorch marks on trees and the direction in which intense
heat sucks the moisture from unburned leaves and needles,
"freezing" them like signposts.
About three-quarters of the human-caused fires result from
carelessness, fire investigators say. Hunters and hikers leave
smoldering campfires, or grass brushes against the hot muffler of
an off-road vehicle. When the ignition point of dry forest litter
is only 500 degrees Fahrenheit (260 Celsius), it takes just a few
seconds and a puff of wind for a spark to grow into a rising wall
of flame.
Investigators look into every reported fire, but how to
prosecute the accidents is left up to local officials.
San Diego authorities say one of this week's fires that killed
12 and burned more than 1,000 homes was sparked by a lost deer
hunter who set a signal blaze in the Cleveland National Forest. He
was cited with a misdemeanor.
But the number of accidental fires still leaves more than 23,000
blazes a year to the firebugs.
Sometimes the cops get lucky, like last year when they literally
bumped into Timothy Nicholas Terry of Eugene, Oregon, down the
trail from a smoke plume near the McKenzie River. Terry was charged
with setting three fires in September 2002. But his vehicle had
been reported near previous blazes, and authorities are
re-examining scores of fires on both sides of Interstate 5 over the
past five years.
Another statistical twist: Arsonists typically get charged only
for their last fire - the one that got them caught. But one arrest
can effectively solve hundreds of incidents spanning several years,
even if the statistics never reflect it.
"In San Luis Obispo, I arrested one guy who we knew set 600
fires," said Douglas Allen, who chairs the wildfire committee for
the International Association of Arson Investigators. Ironically,
wildfire forced Allen to evacuate his home near Lake Arrowhead,
California, on Wednesday.
"These people continue to set fires until they are caught,"
Allen said. "But one arrest can make a big difference."
The psychologists' profile of a typical woods arsonist is a
person marinating in bottled-up anger and intimidation. Except,
that is, for the intoxicating moment when the match strikes and the
flame flickers. Then he exults as the sirens wail and people flee,
terrified.
Fairfax, Virginia, forensic psychologist Neil S. Hibler says
that's when the firebug feels, "I did that. Man, I'm special."
"This is a coward's game," Hibler said.
Some are Beavis-style delinquents, like the seven Halloween
pranksters who lit the 2001 Red Bird fire in the Daniel Boone
National Forest in Kentucky. It left a firefighter in a wheelchair,
paralyzed by a falling black locust tree.
Disgruntled workers and ecoterrorists may seek revenge against
logging companies; for example, $50 million in timber in Louisiana
was torched in 400 separate blazes in 2000.
Yet others see profit, not destruction, in flames. In the 1990s,
investigators probed many blazes around depressed logging towns in
the Pacific Northwest, but there were no convictions.
In hard times, arson-as-public-works is tantalizing: The
government spends more than $1 million a day supporting fire crews,
contracting locally for everything from sandwiches to bulldozers.
And when the flames are extinguished, salvage logging of charred
timber takes years, generating hundreds of jobs and payrolls
topping $40 million.
But for investigators and homeowners alike, the most perverse
category of wildfire arsonist are the firefighters themselves.
The most celebrated case was John Orr, an arson sleuth for the
Glendale, California, fire department serving a life sentence for
setting a 1984 hardware store blaze that killed four people.
He also was convicted of conducting a remarkable arson campaign
that damaged 67 homes along with open land. He was arrested after
penning a novel, "Points of Origin," depicting a firefighter who
torched a hardware store and other businesses for sexual pleasure.
In 2002, firefighters were responsible for two of the nation's
largest wildfires.
In Arizona, Leonard Gregg, a contract firefighter, was sent to a
prison hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after being charged
with setting the Rodeo fire in the state's rugged eastern
mountains. At its worst, the inferno spread 50 miles (80
kilometers) wide; one local fire chief described it as "walking
down the aisles of hell." Containing it cost public agencies $43
million.
Prosecutors said Gregg confessed to setting fire to dry grass in
hopes of earning $8 an hour to extinguish the flames for the Bureau
of Indian Affairs.
In Colorado, former Forest Service seasonal worker Terry Barton
pleaded guilty to starting the Hayman Fire, which consumed 137,000
acres (54,800 hectares) southwest of Denver and destroyed 133
homes.
She claimed to be distraught over her crumbling marriage and
said she burned letters from her estranged husband in a campground
fire ring. Investigators still don't buy her story.
"I never found paper ash," Steensland said. "I did find three
matches stuck head-first into the ground, spaced a half-inch (a
centimeter) apart."
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Comment