News: Forest Service fire technician investigated for arson during 2006

Another suspect was looked at in Esperanza Fire probe

A U.S. Forest Service fire prevention technician was investigated for arson during 2006 in the Banning Pass -- the same time and place prosecutors say Raymond Lee Oyler set blazes that climaxed in the Esperanza Fire that killed five firefighters, court documents show.

A confidential July 2008 report says Michael Karl McNeil, 35, "may possibly be associated" with at least four fires that match the dates and circumstances of blazes Oyler is charged with setting.

It also links McNeil to the use of matchstick firestarter devices, such as Oyler is charged with using in the Esperanza Fire and others.

Raymond Lee Oyler faces trial in the October 2006 Esperanza Fire that killed five firefighters.

The report said McNeil, who is in a Los Angeles County jail on charges that include threatening several public officials, including Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs, was possibly associated with as many as 20 Pass-area fires, from May 16 to Oct. 22, 2006.

"All indicators of a fire fighter arsonist were present," the report states.

Oyler, 38, faces the death penalty. He is charged with 45 counts, including five first-degree murder charges.

Riverside County prosecutors say Oyler started the Esperanza Fire and 22 others from May through October 2006, many of them set with devices made from cigarettes and matches.

Court documents say at least two of the devices were linked to Oyler by DNA.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The investigative report mentions Oyler's arrest for the Esperanza Fire and does not conclusively point to McNeil as being linked to that fire.

Oyler's defense attorney said McNeil's dodgy background and the Forest Service's 2006 investigation of him puts key parts of the case against Oyler in doubt.

"It is the defense position that McNeil is a viable suspect in at least some of the fires Oyler is charged with, and probably Esperanza," said Mark McDonald, Oyler's defense attorney.

The defense has denied Oyler set the Esperanza Fire, claiming early in the case that his activities in the early morning hours before the blaze was set excluded him as the arsonist.

McDonald said the report, "even in its brevity, at least raises the possibility that McNeil had the opportunity, was around the same locations at the same time that Esperanza was started, and had just as much reason or motive as Oyler is alleged to have started the fire."

A prosecutor says McNeil was looked at and dismissed as the arson suspect for the Esperanza case.

"This guy McNeil is not our arsonist," said Michael Hestrin, the lead prosecutor in the Oyler case.

McNeil was "looked at very closely" in the days following the Esperanza Fire and was excluded as a suspect, Hestrin said.

How investigators reached their conclusion will have to wait for Oyler's trial, scheduled for Jan. 5, Hestrin said.

He said investigators did not discount firefighters as suspects in the series of blazes with which Oyler is charged.

"If you had been at two or more (of the arson) fires, you were looked at. There were a lot of firefighters that were suspected," Hestrin said. "We were careful, we did not rush to judgment, but we excluded McNeil as a suspect."

The report is the outline of a man with a checkered past whose claims to be an arson investigator and firefighter were doubted by professionals around him.

It says McNeil behaved obsessively, bombarding colleagues with phone calls and e-mails about using his dog to investigate arson.

He caused aggravation, outrage and suspicion among co-workers during his various assignments, the report says.

Firefighting Experience

McNeil was a firefighter in Utah in 1996.

He worked as a U.S. Forest Service firefighter in the Angeles National Forest that covers 650,000 acres of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties in 2001 and 2002; for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, possibly in the Cleveland National Forest in 2003 and 2004, for the San Bernardino National Forest as a fire prevention technician in 2005 and 2006, and as an assistant fire management officer at the Lassen National Forest in Northern California in 2007.

The report says McNeil was fired from his job in Utah, left the Angeles National Forest job under suspicion and parted ways with Fish and Wildlife under terms of a settlement agreement before rejoining the Forest Service in 2005.

His assignment in the San Bernardino National Forest was at the Banning Pass Fire Station.

He moved to the Lassen assignment last year.

McNeil no longer works for the Forest Service, said Forest Service spokesman John Heil.

Heil could not comment on McNeil's hiring, job history, or Forest Service handling of his personnel issues.

McNeil is being held on a 36-count arson and terrorist threat complaint. Bail has been set at $2.8 million.

The Los Angeles County case recounts a stream of threatening McNeil e-mail to Bono Mack and Boxer, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, the Los Angeles County sheriff's detective investigating the case, and Lassen County officials, including two judges, the district attorney and the public defender.

It also says McNeil set fire to his father's South San Gabriel home.

Suspicions Raised

McNeil started as a volunteer firefighter in Utah in 1996, one account in the report says. It is unclear if McNeil was hired, but it does say he was fired.

On three or four occasions, he reported wildland fires, was first on the scene, and found the arson device. After the last such incident, he was confronted, questioned, and dismissed.

"The device which threw (the chief) over the edge was a rolled up piece of paper, a bunch of matches and a cigarette," the report states.

In 2001 and 2002, McNeil was assigned to the Saugus Ranger District at Oak Flat Station in the Angeles National Forest.

In the 2002 fire season "The Saugus Ranger District experienced one of their biggest years as far as the number of wildland fires attributed to arson. While McNeil was a fire fighter . . . there were 37 arson fires. . . . McNeil lived in Palmdale and the 37 arson fires occurred along various routes between Oak Flat Station and Palmdale."

The report goes on to state that "After McNeil left the Saugus Ranger District (in 2003 and 2004), no arson fires occurred."

A fire engine captain from McNeil's assignments at the Oak Flat station was asked if his crew suspected McNeil of starting fires.

"We could not prove anything, but yes we did suspect that," the captain said.

The report is sketchy about McNeil's time with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in late 2003-early 2004, but says his employment with the agency ended with a termination and settlement agreement that prohibited supervisors and co-workers from discussing McNeil.

The report indicates his assignment was "near the Cleveland National Forest."

Banning Fires

From June 2005 to July 2007 McNeil worked as a fire prevention technician for the San Bernardino National Forest in the San Jacinto Ranger District, assigned to the Banning Pass Fire Station, the report says.

That is the area where prosecutors say Oyler began setting larger and larger fires beginning in May 2006 that culminated with the Esperanza Fire on Oct. 26, 2006.

Oyler was arrested on Nov. 2.

During his Banning Pass assignment, Forest Service officials began connecting dots that increased suspicions about McNeil, his background, his claims of experience as an arson investigator, and the coincidence of his arrival and the increase of arson fires.

"The San Jacinto Ranger District historically received relatively few arson fires. . . . Soon after McNeil arrived, suspicious fires increased in areas which previously had no fire history," the report states. ". . . Cal Fire and Forest Service spent the 2005 fire season ascertaining who was responsible for the increase in the arson wildland fires."

The confidential report details how McNeil apparently dodged participating in the investigation of the August 2005 Blaisdell Fire that briefly shut down the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.

McNeil claimed he was too busy for an assignment to investigate burn patterns and claimed he had other duties minutes before investigators took a helicopter flight over the burn area.

He failed to complete an origin-and-cause report on the fire.

A supervisor "began to suspect McNeil was not trained in fire investigation as he had indicated," the report said.

On June 12, 2006, the report states, a Cal Fire peace officer responding to a fire in Whitewater Canyon near Palm Springs spotted McNeil as he "sat on the freeway over pass that led to fire. McNeil never went to the fire, which appeared odd to the Cal Fire Officer."

By the 2006 fire season for the San Jacinto District, "Wildland fire starts attributed to arson rocketed to levels rarely observed," the report states.

"During the fire season there were over 80 wildland fire starts identified as arson. . . . There were at least three separate incendiary devices utilized and flammable liquids were used to start several fires. A large percentage of these fires, 80-plus, occurred on or very near McNeil's assigned prevention patrol areas."

While assigned to the San Jacinto District, McNeil e-mailed Forest Service law enforcement and special investigation agent Ron Huxman eight digital photos of a cigarette and match device following three early May 2006 fires.

DOUBTS ABOUT ABILITIES

The investigator thought the e-mails were "out of character" because doubts had already been raised about McNeil's abilities as an arson investigator.

Huxman began responding to fires in the Banning Pass and noted McNeil "reported some of the fires and was the first person on scene at others, even though other fire suppression units were closer," the report says.

Investigators put tracking devices on McNeil's vehicle, but the data apparently was inconclusive or did not link him to wildland fires.

The 11-page report prepared by U.S. Forest Service special agent Diane Welton does not say why no action was taken against McNeil, even after a September 2006 discovery that McNeil did not disclose his criminal past, namely a 1998 felony criminal-threat guilty plea, on his applications.

McNeil received a promotion with his 2007 assignment in Lassen National Forest. In the middle of June , McNeil was put on "leave without pay" status.

He was arrested by Los Angeles County authorities in August, records show.

Reach Richard K. De Atley at 951-368- 9573 or rdeatley@PE.com

Esperanza Fire

The Oct. 26 2006 Esperanza Fire destroyed 39 homes and burned 43,000 acres of brush and timber.

It swept over five firefighters of Engine 57 as they took position to protect a home.

Four of the firefighters -- Capt. Mark Loutzenhiser, 43, of Idyllwild; Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; and Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto -- died Oct. 26, the day the flames overtook them.

The fifth, Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley, died Oct. 31.

Next hearing in the Oyler case is Dec. 5.

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