Prosecutors say killer arsonist practiced setting fires - CNN.com

Prosecutors say killer arsonist practiced setting fires - CNN.com:

RIVERSIDE, California (AP) -- In the months before a fatal wildfire killed five firefighters, a serial arsonist was trying out different incendiary devices to see what worked best and setting nearly two dozen fires ranging from a few square feet to thousands of acres, prosecutors said.

The suspect in the blazes, auto mechanic Raymond Lee Oyler, was sharpening his skills as the summer went on, the prosecutors allege, and progressively picking terrain that would result in bigger, faster-moving fires.

"The evidence is going to show that there was a series of fires started by Mr. Oyler, that the devices that Mr. Oyler used had distinct similarities and that there's an evolution in the devices," Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin said Monday during a preliminary hearing in the case.

The Riverside County district attorney's office has charged Oyler with five counts of first-degree murder, 23 counts of arson and 17 counts of possession of materials to commit arson. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

After the hearing, which was to continue Tuesday, Riverside County Superior Judge Jeffrey Prevost will determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

On Monday, investigators outlined a string of fires that stretched from May 16 until October of last year, when five federal firefighters died trying to protect a home in the San Jacinto Mountains.

Capt. Charlie DeHart of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said he found remains at some of the fires of an incendiary device that contained red-tipped wooden matches, called "safety matches," bundled around a Marlboro Light cigarette.

At others, he said, there were just a few matches, or matches placed perpendicular to the cigarette, with their tips resting on the cigarette.

"There are similarities in the placement of the devices ... the matches are similar ... and they're all clumped into one geographic location," DeHart said.

The wooden stick matches were unusual, DeHart said.

"In my 20 years, I have never seen it," he said. "They're just not common. Usually we see paper matches or actual paper matchbook devices."

But defense attorney Mark McDonald said outside court that the devices the investigators described were so different they could not be the work of one person.

"To me, that doesn't go with logic," he said. "They started with the most sophisticated device in May, then went to matchsticks and then went back up. I don't think you can connect all these cases that easily."

The deadly fire was ignited amid fierce Santa Ana winds and eventually charred more than 60 square miles, or 40,000 acres. Oyler, 36, was arrested October 31, days after the fire began.