A California criminal justice professor is accused of intentionally setting an arson wildfire in Northern California next to the state’s massive Dixie Fire.
Federal investigators allege that “Gary Maynard, age 47, set a series of fires in Lassen National Forest and Shasta Trinity National Forest, an area in rural Northern California near where the Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history, still burns,” The Daily Beast reported. “California Forestry Department agents arrested him Saturday. He is charged with intentionally setting fire to public land and is being held without bail in the Sacramento County Main Jail.”
Maynard reportedly identified himself as a professor when a U.S. Forest Service investigator, who was responding to the wildfire, approached Maynard at the scene.