The Academic Arsonist

Da fuck?

A college professor suspected in a series of arson fires in remote forested areas of Northern California near the massive Dixie Fire has been charged in connection with one of the blazes in Lassen County and was ordered ordered Wednesday at the Sacramento County Main Jail.

Gary Stephen Maynard, 47, is believed to have worked at a number of colleges in California, including Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University, where a Dr. Gary Maynard was listed as a lecturer in criminal justice studies specializing in criminal justice, cults and deviant behavior. 

...Maynard was arrested Saturday following an investigation that began July 20 and included a U.S. Forest Service agent placing a tracking device under his car after he had been stopped briefly by Susanville police on Aug. 3.

...“Over the course of the last several weeks, Maynard has set a series of fires in the vicinity of the Lassen National Forest and Shasta Trinity National Forest...,” Anderson wrote in a detention memo. “The area in which Maynard chose to set his fires is near the ongoing Dixie fire, a fire which is still not contained despite the deployment and efforts of over 5,000 personnel.

...According to court filings, Maynard first came to the attention of authorities after the Cascade Fire was reported at 9:45 a.m. on July 20 on the western slopes of Mount Shasta.

Mountain bikers who reported the fire and tried to help put it out helped keep the blaze to about 100 to 200 square feet in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, court papers say. 

U.S. Forest Service investigator Brian Murphy responded to the scene and found a man later identified as Maynard underneath a black Kia Soul that had its front wheels stuck in a ditch and its undercarriage centered on a boulder, court papers say.

...During the encounter, the man said he was a professor and Forest Service investigators subsequently found online profiles for Maynard “at various universities in California,” court papers say. 

...A second fire erupted the next day at 2:50 a.m. on Mount Shasta near the Everitt Memorial Highway, and investigators later found tire tracks similar to those made by the Kia, court papers say.

...Authorities then began tracking Maynard’s movements ... [I]nvestigators tracked his movements for hundreds of miles, including to the area where the Ranch Fire and Conard Fire erupted Saturday in the Lassen National Forest, court papers say.

“It appeared that Maynard was in the midst of an arson-setting spree,” court papers say.

Maynard was arrested that day inside the emergency closure area forced by the Dixie Fire, court papers say.

“He entered the evacuation zone and began setting fires behind the first responders fighting the Dixie Fire,” Anderson wrote in his detention memo. “In addition to the danger of enlarging the Dixie fire and threatening more lives and property, this increased the danger to the first responders.”