Features

Firefighter arrested for setting fires

The Associated Press
Friday July 20, 2001

SAN DIEGO — A U.S. Forest Service firefighter has been arrested and charged with setting five fires over the past two months in the Cleveland National Forest. 

James King was being held without bail Thursday on five counts of wilfully starting fires. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. 

He did not enter a plea at an arraignment Monday and his attorney, Ezekiel E. Cortez, did not return phone messages. 

King, a 26-year-old from Ramona who was in his third season as a temporary firefighter, was arrested Saturday at the Pine Hills Ranger Station where he worked. The station is located about 60 miles east of San Diego. 

No one was injured in any of the fires, which consumed a total of about 30 acres of forest in San Diego County, but investigators said that did not diminish the seriousness of the case. 

“This person was going to continue to light fires,” said Ronald Huxman, a special agent with the U.S. Forest Service who arrested King. “As fire season rolled on, one of these fires would have escaped control and become a large fire possibly injuring property and lives.” 

Investigators are trying to determine whether King is responsible for other fires. 

King had a “huge smile on his face,” as he and other firefighters responded to a July 14 fire near the Pine Hills station, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego. The affidavit also describes King as eagerly dispatching firetrucks to small blazes that broke out near the station when he was the only firefighter on duty. 

“He liked to respond to fires,” Huxman said. 

He declined to discuss King’s motives or methods. 

King was under surveillance for about five weeks. He wrote a full confession when an investigator confronted him about the fires, although he did not appear remorseful, Huxman said. He said King wanted to get caught. 

Firefighters grew suspicious of King May 17 when King alerted them to a fire burning near the station, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego. King insisted there was a fire when no one else at the station could see or smell smoke. Finally, after several minutes, firefighters saw a faint puff of white smoke. 

“King appeared to have been watching in the area for something to appear when no one else could see anything,” the affidavit stated. He also guided the crew to the site of the fire on the Inaja Indian Reservation. 

King confirmed their suspicions in June. While staring at a brush pile across the road from the ranger station, according to the affidavit, King asked another firefighter “What would I do if a fire started in front of the station? Would I be able to take the fire engine over and put out the fire?” 

On July 6, nine days later, the brush pile across from the station caught fire, in a blaze investigators determined had been intentionally set.