{"id":632497,"date":"2021-08-11T07:06:35","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T11:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=632497"},"modified":"2021-08-11T07:06:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T11:06:39","slug":"california-professor-accused-of-arson-setting-spree-charged-with-starting-wildfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/california-professor-accused-of-arson-setting-spree-charged-with-starting-wildfire\/","title":{"rendered":"California Professor Accused Of \u2018Arson-Setting Spree\u2019 Charged With Starting Wildfire"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcalifornia-professor-accused-of-arson-setting-spree-charged-with-starting-wildfire%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=632497&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CA-fire-scaled-1.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A California criminal justice professor is accused of intentionally setting an arson wildfire in Northern California next to the state\u2019s massive Dixie Fire.<\/p>\n<p>Federal investigators allege that \u201cGary 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,\u201d The Daily Beast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/criminal-justice-professor-gary-maynard-set-blazes-across-northern-california-as-dixie-fire-raged-cops-say\">reported<\/a>. \u201cCalifornia 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maynard reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/news\/local\/article253403045.html\">identified<\/a> himself as a professor when a U.S. Forest Service investigator, who was responding to the wildfire, approached Maynard at the scene.<\/p>\n<p>KCNA <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcra.com\/article\/college-lecturer-accused-fire-near-dixie-fire-court-documents-read\/37275387#\">reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"11\">\n<p><em>Sonoma State University confirmed to the SF Gate that Maynard was a part-time lecturer in the department of criminology and criminal justice in fall 2020. He currently doesn\u2019t have an appointment with the university, the school said. The Sonoma State website says his areas of expertise are criminal justice, social science research methods, cults and deviant behavior.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Prosecutors used a variety of techniques during the course of their investigation and even placed a tracker on Maynard\u2019s car. Tyler Bolen, U.S. Forest Service Special Agent, <a href=\"https:\/\/htv-prod-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/files\/maynard-complaint-and-affidavit-1628654056.pdf\">wrote<\/a> in court documents that evidence obtained by investigators suggests that Maynard \u201cappeared\u201d to be \u201cin the midst of an arson-setting spree.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver 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,\u201d assistant U.S. attorney Michael Anderson told Judge Kendall J. Newman. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Officials believe that mental health issues might have played a role in the alleged arson wildfires.<\/p>\n<p>Bolen <a href=\"https:\/\/htv-prod-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/files\/maynard-complaint-and-affidavit-1628654056.pdf\">stated<\/a> in court documents:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"14\">\n<p><em>During the course of this investigation, I consulted with the San Jose Police Department\u2019s dispatch services who advised me that in October of 2020, a concerned citizen had contacted the San Jose Police Department with concerns about their colleague, Maynard who worked as a professor at Santa Clara University. This concerned citizen told officers that Maynard had told her he was suffering from anxiety, depression, split personality, and that he wanted to kill himself. This concerned citizen said that Maynard had moved out and was possibly living somewhere out of his vehicle.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The fires that Maynard is accused of setting are close to the state\u2019s Dixie Fire, which is barely over a quarter contained and has already destroyed a staggering 766 square miles of land, including nearly 550 homes.<\/p>\n<p>Separate court documents, obtained by <a href=\"https:\/\/sacramento.cbslocal.com\/2021\/08\/11\/college-professor-accused-of-setting-fires-in-dixie-fire-area\/\">CBS 13 Sacramento<\/a>, outline the severity of the alleged crimes:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"10\">\n<p><em>[Maynard] entered the evacuation zone and began setting fires behind the first responders fighting the Dixie fire. In addition to the danger of enlarging the Dixie fire and threatening more lives and property, this increased the danger to the first responders. Maynard\u2019s fires were placed in the perfect position to increase the risk of firefighters being trapped between fires. But for the dedication and efforts of U.S. Forest Service investigators working around the clock to track Maynard, those fires would not have been discovered in their infancy.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A California criminal justice professor is accused of intentionally setting an arson wildfire in Northern California next to the state\u2019s massive Dixie Fire.Federal investigators allege that \u201cGary Maynard, age 47, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}