2010 Opening Ceremony & Keynote Presentation

Tuesday, March 2
10:15 AM - 11:45 AM

The New Arson Precedent

Arson has always been one of the most difficult crimes to prove. The conviction in Southern California this past year of Raymond Oyler, however, has given prosecutors a new tool to combat the crime, which accounts for about 10 percent of all structure and wildland fires. Oyler, who was convicted and sentenced to death in March, 2009, for the arson-murder of five firefighters in the Esperanza Fire, is the first arsonist ever to be convicted of murder for setting a wildland fire. With a guilty verdict in hand, law enforcement officials lost no time in making the Oyler case a precedent. Before the year was out prosecutors in San Bernardino, California, brought murder charges in another wildland arson case, for the Old Fire of 2003, in which six people died of heart attacks. Rickie Lee Fowler, who was in prison on other charges and long had been a suspect, was indicted for murder and arson for setting the Old Fire. Join award-winning author, John Maclean, as he sheds light on the new arson precedent when an arsonist lights a wildland fire and deaths occur a full-scale homicide investigation is likely to follow – and very well may be successful.

John Maclean, award-winning author of three previous books on wildfire disasters, is working on a fourth book, about the Esperanza Fire and the trial of the arsonist Raymond Oyler. Maclean first visited the site of the Esperanza Fire in 2007, the spring after it occurred, and he has returned many times since. He covered the lengthy Oyler trial in Riverside and has done follow-on research and interviews about the trial. Maclean's first book, Fire on the Mountain, about the South Canyon Fire of 1994 on Storm King Mountain in Colorado, has been reissued (December, 2009) in a modern classics edition by Harper Collins Perennial. Maclean is a frequent speaker at wildfire academies and other gatherings, and is a member of the Seeley Lake Volunteer Fire Department in Montana. For further information, please see the website www.johnmacleanbooks.com.