Flare-Up in Arson Prompts Inquiry Team for Lancaster

A 43% rise in arson cases this year in the fast-growing desert and mountain areas north of Los Angeles is causing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to install a new fire investigation team in Lancaster, the first such satellite office in the county.

Lt. Ken Chausse, the commander of the Sheriff’s Arson/Explosives Unit, said Monday that the number of arson cases in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys has grown from 350 in the first six months of 1989 to 500 cases during the same period this year.

The caseload has overburdened the investigator currently assigned to the areas, Chausse said, requiring that deputies from other areas be brought in on some investigations.

Officials hope to assign to Lancaster a four- or five-deputy team of investigators from the unit’s existing 21-deputy staff by the end of the year, Chausse said.

“The department has been tracking the demographics of the area for some time,” Chausse said. “It’s important that we be able to decrease our response time by creating a full-time unit.”

The most serious recent cases include a $6-million fire at a Lancaster condominium complex in June in which a disgruntled worker was charged and two cases that are still under investigation: last month’s $2-million blaze at a Valencia hotel under construction and a rash of suspicious brush fires in the hills west of Palmdale.

In addition to its increases in arson cases and population, Chausse said, the northern part of the county needs special attention because the climate and geography of the mountains and high desert add to the danger. The area is also far from the arson unit’s Whittier headquarters and would be best served by a local office manned by deputies who live in the north county, he said.

The team would initially be stationed in an office at the Mira Loma jail facility and would handle arson investigations and situations involving explosives in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valley area and Malibu.

Officials attribute the rise in arson to a population increase and to a concentration of prime arson targets--construction sites and remote, vast areas of brush.