Arson investigators read tire tracks, planted a vehicle tracking device and traced electronic benefit card transactions and cell phone signals to gather evidence and arrest a 47-year-old college instructor from San Jose on suspicion of setting multiple wildfires near Mount Shasta and the Dixie Fire.
Gary Stephen Maynard, who taught criminal justice at a number of California colleges including Sonoma State University and Santa Clara University, according to court documents, was arrested on Saturday in Lassen County, near the Conard Fire, which he is suspected of setting.
He is accused of “willfully setting fire to land owned by or under the jurisdiction of the United States,” according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
Maynard has denied setting the fires.
Maynard first drew the attention of investigators last month when he was spotted beneath a car stuck in a ditch, near the ignition point of the Cascade Fire on the west slopes of Mount Shasta.
A U.S. Forest Service fire investigator questioned Maynard, whom he believed was living out of his car, but left after Maynard became “uncooperative and agitated.”
That started a two-week probe in which investigators found evidence they believe linked Maynard to at least seven wildfires in Northern California national forests.
“It appeared Maynard was in the midst of an arson-setting spree,” Forest Service special agent Tyler Bolen wrote in a court document.
While the fires were allegedly set in areas near where the Dixie Fire, the second largest and among the most destructive in state history, is burning, PG&E officials have said the utility’s equipment may have sparked that blaze. The Dixie Fire started near the Feather River in Plumas County.
Investigators returned to the scene where Maynard was questioned the next day, and interviewed another man living in his car in the area who told them Maynard visited the area along a dirt road several hours before the fire started, acted angrily and threw things on the ground. After Maynard walked away for 10 minutes, the witness said, he saw smoke from what would be named the Cascade Fire.
Nearby, investigators found at least two piles of burned sticks and newspaper shreds. They also found tire tracks from Maynard’s vehicle, which they photographed and measured. They matched photographs taken during the encounter with Maynard.
The same day, the Everitt Fire broke out in the same area on Mount Shasta and investigators found tire tracks that were similar to those from Maynard’s vehicle. Similar tracks were found at other fires, and investigators tracked use of an electronic benefits card and Maynard’s cell phone to determine his whereabouts and obtain a warrant allowing them to place a tracking device on his car.
After the device showed his car in the areas of two more wildfires in Lassen County, they arrested Maynard.
He was jailed in Lassen County jail in Susanville.
Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ctuan
