Silverado Suspect Lived Near Sites of Mystery Fires

Officials are taking a fresh look at 25 mysterious fires in the last year near the former residence of Robert E. Lowenberg, the 19-year-old man charged with arson in the Silverado Canyon fire, Capt. Richard Kelly of the Garden Grove Fire Department said Tuesday.

Kelly said Lowenberg, who moved to Cypress, had not been considered a suspect in the Garden Grove fires. But, Kelly said, federal officials handling the Silverado Canyon case have been told about the rash of small blazes for purposes of their interrogation of Lowenberg.

Cypress Trees Burned

Kelly, an arson investigator, said he passed along the information because he found it curious that the mystery fires had been reported in the general vicinity of a quiet residential area near the corner of Katella Avenue and Magnolia Street, where the Lowenberg family lived until recently.

He said 25 suspected arson cases, all of them involving the burning of cypress trees, were reported within a half-square-mile area in the nine-month period from August, 1986, to May, 1987. None of the fires resulted in serious damages, and all broke out in the area between Magnolia and Brookhurst streets and Katella and Chapman avenues.

“It has always been cypress trees, always between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. and always in the same geographical area,” Kelly said. The Lowenberg family lived on Bickley Circle just south of Katella Avenue until earlier this summer.

“We’re not saying anyone is a suspect,” Kelly said. “What we can say is that we’ve been in touch with the federal authorities in relationship with these fires we’ve had in the area.

“They are aware of the fact that these fires did occur, and they will question him.”

Lowenberg, the oldest son of Cypress Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg, was formally charged Monday with setting two fires on Sept. 9 that destroyed 5,000 acres of Cleveland National Forest.

More than 1,100 firefighters battled the fire for five days at a cost estimated at $1.3 million. During an appearance before U.S. Magistrate Volney V. Brown Jr. on Monday, Lowenberg was ordered to enter a drug and alcohol treatment program.

Federal officials said Richard Anthony Tafoya, Lowenberg’s best friend, was with him when the Silverado Canyon fires were set and later turned in his friend. Lowenberg has been ordered not to try to contact Tafoya, who also lives in Orange County.

Kelly said the investigations of the Garden Grove fires had stalled because of a lack of witnesses or probable suspects.

“We could never get a description of a car . . . anything,” he said.

According to residents, the fires started after someone doused tall, lone-standing cypress trees with gasoline.

One area resident said her neighbors, who have a 30-foot cypress tree in their side yard, had been warned by the Fire Department to cut it down “because they thought it would be the next one to burn.”

Kelly said the cypress trees “look like massive candles” when set on fire.