Hospital Dorm Lost : Staff Aide Held in $2.5-Million Camarillo Fire

A psychiatric technician at Camarillo State Hospital is being held on suspicion of setting the fire that destroyed an employees’ dormitory valued at about $2.5 million Tuesday, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday.

Susan Bouchard, 35, was arrested Tuesday after she admitted touching off the blaze to a sheriff’s deputy, said Sgt. Roger Kerr.

The fire was set in Bouchard’s ground-floor apartment and spread quickly to the attic, Kerr said. He said it was not yet known how Bouchard set the fire.

Bouchard was being held Wednesday in Ventura County Jail on suspicion of arson, in lieu of $10,000 bail.

Kerr said that, after the fire, Bouchard was taken to Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo to be checked for smoke inhalation. A doctor there saw her “exhibiting bizarre behavior,” Kerr said. He said he did not know the nature of that behavior.

Reportedly Admitted Deed

Bouchard was then taken to Ventura County Medical Center in Ventura, where she reportedly admitted starting the fire, Kerr said.

“She indicated she was trying to hurt herself,” the sheriff’s spokesman said.

Dan Spykerman, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesman, confirmed that the fire started in Bouchard’s room.

The spectacular blaze took dozens of Ventura County firefighters about three hours to extinguish, hospital spokesman Myron Dimmett said.

It quickly destroyed the two-story, 36-unit staff dormitory, trapping one employee on the roof, Dimmett said. The employee was rescued by ladder while another employee jumped from a second-story window, hurting his foot but sustaining no serious injuries.

The shell of the building, one of many in a cluster at the 1,300-patient hospital, will be torn down and the cost of rebuilding will be about $2.5 million, hospital officials said.