Expert on the criminal mind suspected in arson spree
LASSEN NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. — He drove out of the Lumberjacks restaurant parking lot on a Tuesday in August, up Main Street, past the fire station and the gun shop. Then, Gary Maynard left the small city of Susanville in the northeastern corner of California and headed up a steep highway into the Sierra Nevada, where, prosecutors say, he set the forest ablaze.
Maynard, a criminology professor who specializes in deviancy, now sits in a Sacramento jail awaiting a hearing. The crime expert, investigators say, became a criminal himself.
Arson, a crime whose perpetrators have included lawyers, dentists, millionaires and residents of homeless encampments, has for decades been a concern in California, where about 10 percent of wildfires every year are set on purpose, according to Cal Fire, the state’s largest fire agency.
With megafires in recent years plaguing California, where forests and scrublands remain extremely desiccated by drought and other effects of climate change, the arsonist’s match is an especially potent threat.
“The wildland arsonist is the most dangerous criminal in the world,” said Ed Nordskog, who has spent a career interrogating arsonists in California as an investigator in Los Angeles. “They can burn a whole town down in an hour.”
In California, the number of arson arrests jumped during the pandemic: 120 were reported by 2020 compared with 70 the year before. Arson offenses had been declining nationwide for the past few decades, but FBI data shows a 20 percent increase in 2020.
Nordskog, who has interviewed more than 300 arsonists in his career, says it is a crime that crosses race and gender lines. The Hollywood portrayal of serial arsonists excited by fire applies to a small subset of arsonists, he said. But more common are people frustrated with their jobs or family life or suffering mental health crises.
“Most arsonists are just angry people,” he said.
The case of Maynard, the criminology professor, appears to spotlight the stresses of the pandemic, links to mental illness and the arduous work of stopping arsonists before they cause irreparable harm.
Former students described Maynard as anxious, troubled and, at times, inappropriate. One said he often taught his classes during the pandemic via Zoom from a darkened bedroom, revealing details about an ailing father, a lawsuit against his former landlord and his battles with his mental health.
Officials first came across Maynard in July when responding to a wildfire on the slopes of Mt. Shasta, about an hour south of the Oregon border. After a mountain biker called to report the fire, an investigator with the U.S. Forest Service found Maynard on a rutted road trying to extricate his car, which had gotten stuck on a boulder.
Agents photographed the car and took note of the patterns of its tire tracks. When the same tracks were found near a second fire less than 24 hours later, the lead investigator obtained a warrant to track Maynard’s phone.
On Aug. 3, agents followed Maynard’s movements into the hills. The air was thick with smoke from the Dixie fire, a megafire burning several dozen miles away that experts believe started from electrical equipment.
Maynard drove into a labyrinth of rutted dirt logging roads in the Lassen National Forest and set three additional fires, investigators say. After the third fire he was arrested.