Firefighter recalls harrowing day
Suspected arsons covered wide swath
IMPERIAL – April 23, 2022, may be remembered as the day Imperial Valley burned, especially among its public safety officials and the farming community.
On that typically warm and sunny spring Saturday a serial arsonist torched haystacks at seven locations across a wide swath of the area’s lush farm fields and set a 50acre brush fire for good measure.
“I’ve been here since 2000 and I can’t remember another day like that. You had haystack after haystack after haystack and then he lit up a river bottom,” said Imperial County Fire Battalion
Chief Christian Guzman, who is based out of the agency’s Station 1 in Imperial and was on duty that day.
An intense manhunt ensued and less than 24 hours later the Sheriff ’s Office arrested a suspect, Eriberto Saucedo Delgado, 54, of Holtville.
Saucedo was quickly charged with 10 felony counts related to the eight blazes on April 23 and two more haystack fires on April 3 and 16. He remains in the county jail on
$1 million bail awaiting a scheduled May 23 preliminary hearing.
The victims were seven different farming companies, with one targeted three times.
The interview with Guzman and reviews of the Sheriff ’s Office daily logs, a map of the fire locations posted by County Fire on its Facebook page, and the charges filed by the District Attorney’s Office, reveal the daunting task first responders faced that day.
They also show the suspected arsonist scrambled as well if he set the fires of which he is accused. Blazes, some just minutes apart, ranged from east of Imperial and north of Holtville to east and west of Brawley and west of Calipatria.
Following Saucedo’s arrest, authorities said they believed he worked alone and no one else has been arrested in connection with the fires.
Asked last week if certainty remained Saucedo is the lone suspect, Deputy District Attorney Mario Vela, the prosecuting attorney, said, “No comment at this time.”
Posed the same question, Sheriff ’s Lt. Ryan Kelley added, “What I can say is during the course of the investigation we were able to establish enough probable cause to charge him with those fires and the charges were approved by the D.A.”
Saucedo was arrested on English Road, between Sinclair and Merkley roads, northwest of Calipatria, about noon on April 24 when a Sheriff ’s deputy spotted a Jeep fitting the description of a vehicle seen near some fires.
Authorities later said Saucedo made statements connecting him to the fires. There is also evidence he started other as yet uncharged fires, and planned to start more, they added. However, no potential motive has been revealed.
Fire and Sheriff ’s officials were inundated by the volume of simultaneous calls, Guzman conceded, though noting pride in the effort.
“Due to multiple calls coming it, we did have multiple engines respond to the same place. That was cleared up pretty quickly. It highlighted problems, but even under stress the system held up,” he said.
Asked about the range of the blazes, Guzman explained due to the sheer size of the county initial confusion is unavoidable until a fire crew actually gets on scene.
“The geography doesn’t help us. We’re driving 2030 minutes to a stack just to see there’s no exposure (threat from fire to surrounding assets),” he said.
“Calls go to different dispatchers. Also different callers have different perspectives,” Guzman added. “(We) may have received multiple calls for the same stack with differing locations given (or) two locations reported as the same fire, and calls came in at different times.”
Records show the first haystack fire was reported at 12:19 p.m. at Worthington and Casey roads, northwest of Holtville. The next haystack blaze was reported at 12:58 p.m. at Worthington and McConnell, east of Imperial, about 3.5 miles from and 39 minutes after the Casey fire.
Guzman noted the time of a fire call is a variable amount of time after the fire actually started.
Next, the path of fires jumped to North County areas.
The third haystack fire call was at 1:24 p.m. on Kershaw between Quay and Titsworth, north of Brawley, about 18 miles from and 26 minutes after the McConnell fire. The fourth blaze was reported at 1:50 p.m., a brush fire on Brandt near Ruegger along the New River, southwest of Calipatria, about 5 miles from and 26 minutes after the Kershaw fire.
The fifth blaze, a haystack, was reported at 2: 32 p. m. near Brandt and Andre, northwest of Brawley, about 5.6 miles from and 42 minutes after the previous Brandt fire.
Next, the arsonist’s path quickly moved east and south.
The sixth fire, a haystack, was reported at 2: 37 p. m. near Streiby and Highway 115, east of Brawley, about 12 miles from and five minutes after the second Brandt fire. Moreover, the city of Brawley, with its population of about 25,000, lies between the two.
Blaze number seven, a haystack, was reported at 2:45 p.m. on Boyd between 115 and Holt, north of Holtville, about 5 miles from and eight minutes after the Streiby fire.
An eighth fire, a haystack, does not have a time on the Sheriff ’s logs but is listed as being on Keystone east of Holt, which is about a mile from the Boyd fire.
In all, eight fires attributed to a single suspected arsonist were reported within two hours and 26 minutes with the two fires furthest apart (the Worthington and Casey fire and the Brandt and Ruegger brush fire) being about 25 miles from each other.
With multiple simultaneous fires, creative strategies were in order, Guzman noted.
“You prioritize, like medical triage, as the calls are coming in,” he said, adding some fires were just left to burn.
“An engine was in route to the three-alarm (brush fire at Brandt near Ruegger). A call came in for a haystack fire (near Andre and Brandt). We diverted that engine briefly and he said the wind is in our favor and it’s not threatening the feedlot. On a typical day, the engine might have sat there for a few hours to make sure the feedlot was O.K,” Guzman said.
Eight engines with an average crew of three each responded to the Brandt Road brush fire alone, while other engines and crews were sent to some of the haystack fires, Guzman explained of the breadth of response.
The Sheriff ’s Office deserves much credit, Guzman added, saying, “A deputy would arrive on scene and if there was no exposures that was good enough for us. We directed resources to where they were needed.”
County Fire was also unable to respond to some calls, including a vehicle fire near Niland and a small brush fire. That endangerment was cited by Superior Court Judge Christopher Plourd when at Saucedo’s April 26 arraignment he let the $1 million bail stand.