Man Charged With Starting Eight Wild Fires in Two Counties

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Man Charged With Starting Eight Wild Fires in Two Counties

Incident: Colby
Released: 3 hrs. ago

(08-14) 16:38 PDT Oroville, Calif. (AP) --

A Sutter County man was charged Tuesday with setting at least nine wild fires this year in two Northern California counties. James Kenneth Hough, 56, of Live Oak was arraigned in Butte County Superior Court on nine felony arson counts.

He was charged with starting eight Butte County fires, each of which burned from 3 acres to 1,000 acres, as well as last week's 167-acre Colby fire in the Lassen National Forest, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said.

Hough did not enter a plea Tuesday, and he was assigned a public defender. State and federal investigators also are examining whether Hough was involved in as many as 60 other suspicious fires since 2005 in the five-county region of Butte, Nevada, Yuba, Sutter and Placer counties.

"We're combing evidence and records to see if there's a pattern," said Janet Upton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Last week's Colby fire in Tehama County shuttered part of Highway 22 for three days and forced the evacuation of three area campgrounds.

Hough was arrested Friday and booked into the Butte County Jail in Oroville.

His bail was set at $675,000, Ramsey said.

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How fires get their names

Every year in California thousands of wildfires start throughout the state. In most cases, the dispatch center sending the initial resources to a wildland fire will designate a name for the fire, but the first on scene engine or fire official can also name the incident. Fires are usually named for the area in which they start – a geographical location, local landmark, street, lake, mountain, peak, etc. Quickly naming the fire provides responding fire resources with an additional locater, and allows fire officials to track and prioritize incidents by name. For example during the Southern California Fire Siege of 2003, the largest wildland fire in California history, the Cedar Fire in San Diego County, was named after the Cedar Creek Falls area where it started. The destructive Old Fire, which burned during the same time period in San Bernardino County, was named after the road along which it started - Old Waterman Canyon Road.

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Thursday, August 16, 2007