William Rupp climbed onto the roof of his family’s mobile home in remote Shasta County, California, armed with just a garden hose.

One of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history – later known as the Bear fire – is said to have begun in his yard when his lawn mower struck a rock in dry grass. He was fighting to save everything he owned.

His wife, Tina, couldn’t rouse the volunteer fire department via phone, so she got into their van and drove to the station. Shortly after her return, Rupp said, “an ember flew over the road. The grass caught on fire. It only took seconds. We couldn’t believe it.

“Once it got to the tree line, it was all over,” he said of that awful afternoon in August 2004. “There was no way to contain it all.”

The Bear fire burned nearly 11,000 acres. It destroyed 80 homes and 30 outbuildings. And it upended Rupp’s life. Not because his home burned down; it did not. But because he was arrested, convicted of arson for starting the blaze and spent two years in state prison.

As California struggles with yet another never-ending fire season – worsened by climate change, widespread tree death and a five-year drought – authorities say they are taking a more aggressive posture toward people who ignite fires or interfere with firefighting operations.

Rupp is the rare suspect convicted of arson for setting a wildfire; his case highlights how widely penalties vary for people accused of starting the brutal blazes that are a California hallmark. Fire season won’t get into full swing until September, and already flames have ripped through a small town north of San Francisco and forced 80,000 people from their homes outside of Los Angeles.

“Ultimately it’s the district attorney who will have the final say in whether they’re going to charge and what they’re going to charge – arson or negligence,” said Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for the California department of forestry and fire protection.

“With arson, it’s very, very hard to find the person,” Tolmachoff said. “They light the fire. They leave the area. There’s not a lot of evidence left, because it’s destroyed in the fire. It’s even harder to prosecute murder in the case of arson ... To get all of that together, those are very unusual cases.”

A property destroyed by the Blue Cut wildfire in Phelan, California, on Wednesday. Fires are being worsened by climate change and drought. Photograph: Jonathan Alcorn/AFP/Getty Images

Although around 95% of wildfires are caused by human activity of some kind, she said, only 7% of the total are considered arson. The rest of the manmade burns fall loosely into the categories of negligence, accident or basic stupidity.

But that does not make them any less destructive.

Sergio Martinez, a first-time deer hunter who got lost in San Diego County in 2003, set two signal fires to alert his companion to his whereabouts. Whipped out of control by hot dry winds, the small blazes became the Cedar fire, destroyed 2,400 homes and killed 15 people.

Martinez pleaded guilty to starting an illegal fire on federal property and was sentenced to six months in a work furlough program and 960 hours of community service.



“I didn’t want my body to be found in a ravine,” Martinez said at sentencing, according to the Los Angeles Times, describing his panic and dehydration. “The thirst was sucking the life out of me.”

In July, the US attorney’s office filed a civil lawsuit seeking nearly $25m in damages from a Saudi businessman and the caretakers of his property in the San Jacinto mountains in southern California.

According to federal officials, an improperly maintained electrical junction box on Tarek M Al-Shawaf’s property caused the 2015 Mountain fire, which torched more than 27,500 acres and forced 5,000 people to evacuate from the town of Idyllwild.

Raymond Lee Oyler is believed to be the first arsonist in the country convicted of murder for setting a wildfire. The former mechanic was found guilty of setting the Esperanza fire in Riverside County in 2006, which killed five firefighters and burned 43,000 acres. He is currently on death row.

Riverside County district attorney Mike Hestrin prosecuted Oyler, who he described as that rare specimen, “a true pyromaniac”. Oyler played a cat-and-mouse game with investigators over a five month period, Hestrin said, setting fires, watching firefighters respond and slowly perfecting his craft.

Raymond Lee Oyler was described by a prosecutor as ‘a true pyromaniac’. Photograph: Nick Ut/AP

Oyler, now 46, would often set three consecutive fires to gain maximum impact, Hestrin said. The first brought out an initial response, the second diverted firefighters and the third ensured that firefighting efforts were diluted as much as possible. All the while, he would follow the official response using binoculars and a police scanner.

“He was the master of the universe for that moment,” Hestrin said. “He loved it and was addicted to it ... Psychologists say that the serial arsonist’s psychological makeup is something like that of a child molester, in the sense that they’re fascinated and can’t stop.”

Soon after Oyler was sentenced to death in 2009, Hestrin said, he was asked whether “this will lead to a lot more murder convictions for wildland arson. I said, ‘No, I don’t think so. I think it’s pretty rare.’”

But as the wildfire season lengthens in crisp California, the pace of prosecution is speeding up.

Forty-year-old Damin Pashilk, the suspect behind a blaze that destroyed 175 homes. Photograph: Kent Porter/AP

On Wednesday, Damin Anthony Pashilk, a 40-year-old with a criminal record, was arraigned in Lake County superior court on 17 charges, including aggravated arson and arson of an inhabited structure.

He allegedly ignited the devastating Clayton fire on Saturday. It has burned nearly 4,000 acres, destroyed 175 homes and businesses and is only 25% contained.

As it handles Pashilk’s case, the Lake County district attorney is also pondering whether to file charges in the 2015 Valley fire, which burned 76,000 acres, destroyed more than 1,300 homes, killed four people and injured four firefighters.



State fire officials announced last week that a faulty electrical connection in a home hot tub sparked the fire.

William Rupp’s case, too, was more negligence than intention.

The 56-year-old was accused of intentionally ignoring warnings of potential fire hazard, mounting his riding mower and cutting the grass on his rural property south of Lake Shasta on a dry, 106F (41C) August day. According to authorities, a mower blade struck a rock, sparked and ignited the fire at around 1.30 pm.

The former construction worker, who has been unable to work since an accident on a building site in 1996, tells a different story. Local officials ordered him to clear his property of trash and vegetation. He started mowing at 5.30 am and finished at around 10am, long before the fire started.

“I was wrongfully convicted,” said Rupp, who turned down a plea deal that would have put him behind bars for just a few months because he said he did nothing wrong.

Rupp was sentenced to four years in state prison and served two. He and his family survive on his disability payments. He owes $2.9m to victims of the fire and has no way to pay.

“I should never have went to prison,” he said. “I went to prison as an arsonist. But I wasn’t.”