8/11/2021- 3:15 p.m.
California – Dr. Gary Stephen Maynard a criminal justice professor in California was arrested over the weekend after federal investigators say he started a series of forest fires in a remote area of Northern California near where the massive Dixie Fire continues to burn.
He was taking into custody on Saturday and charged with intentionally setting fire to federal land for allegedly setting multiple fires in Lassen National Forest and Shasta Trinity National Forest late last month.
According to the criminal complaint, filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court in Eastern California, authorities on the morning of July 20 received reports about a wildfire on the western slope of Mt. Shasta, later designated the Cascade Fire.
An investigator arrived on the scene and found two vehicles parked about 75 yards off of an un-named dirt road, one of which allegedly belonged to Maynard.
“Upon hearing this, the man appeared agitated, and turned away from Inv. Murphy where he returned to digging and working to free the SUBJECT VEHICLE from its position,” the complaint stated. “Inv. Murphy recognized the man’s uncooperative and agitated behavior and felt it was safest to distance himself from this man.”
The other car was parked approximately 100 feet away, and the occupant, referred to as Witness 1, said he had been there since the previous day and observed and interacted with Maynard on the day of the fire. He told investigators that Maynard had arrived several hours before the fire started and seemed “very angry” after his car got stuck.
Investigators began looking into Maynard, and earlier this month obtained a warrant to track his vehicle that prosecutors say linked him to at least seven fires in the area and greatly increased the danger to the over 5,000 personnel already deployed to contain the ongoing Dixie Fire.
“Maynard’s fires were placed in the perfect position to increase the risk of firefighters being trapped between fires. But for the dedication and efforts of U.S. Forest Service investigators working around the clock to track Maynard, those fires would not have been discovered in their infancy. With Maynard’s growing fires at their backs, firefighters would have been placed at much greater risk.”
U.S. Attorney Michael Anderson on Tuesday reiterated that sentiment during a bond hearing on Tuesday.
