Police to Review Arsons Handled by Orr : * Fires: The review will focus on whether the fire captain, indicted in five arsons, acted improperly or set blazes himself.

Glendale Police, assisted by state and county investigators, this week began a review of arson cases assigned to suspended Glendale Fire Capt. John L. Orr, who has been charged with setting store fires outside the city.

City officials said they want to determine whether Orr acted improperly, mishandled evidence or set fires during his tenure as Glendale’s chief arson investigator.

“We will be reviewing all the cases that he has investigated for the Glendale Fire Department and all cases where he appeared at the scene of a fire,” said Capt. Glynn Martin, a 30-year Glendale Police Department veteran who oversees the investigative services division. “We’ll be going back approximately 10 years.

“We will be looking for any evidence of the commission of a crime associated with fires.”

Orr, 42, a resident of Eagle Rock, was hired by Glendale in 1974 and became an arson investigator in 1980. He was arrested Dec. 4 after federal officials alleged that he had set fires at three Los Angeles-area stores. On Dec. 17, a federal grand jury indicted him on five counts of arson and three counts of attempted arson, all involving stores in the Los Angeles area and in Atascadero.

Federal officials said they believe that Orr wrote about his exploits in “Points of Origin,” his unpublished novel about a firefighter who is a serial arsonist.

Orr has pleaded not guilty. He was released after posting $50,000 bail, on the condition that he remain under electronically monitored house arrest.

After the federal indictment, Glendale Fire Chief Richard Hinz requested that Orr’s cases be reviewed “to explore the possibility of concealed or adulterated evidence.”

Hinz asked that the investigation be done by experts from outside his department to avoid any suggestion that sympathetic Glendale firefighters had covered up possible findings of misconduct on the part of Orr.

Glendale City Manager David Ramsay ordered the Police Department to conduct the probe, and Martin was named to head it. Assisting him will be Agent Chris Loop and Investigator Will Currie.

Martin said the state fire marshal’s office and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have each promised to provide an arson specialist to assist Glendale officers.

Many Glendale police officers, including Martin, know Orr because of the common working environment. But Martin said the use of outside specialists will help ensure that the review is objective.

“We will not be solely investigating one of our own,” he said. “We will have the unbiased personnel from the other agencies who will be assisting.”

Glendale investigators this week began compiling a list of cases Orr worked. The list will be narrowed as investigators decide which incidents deserve closer scrutiny because of suspicious circumstances or significant losses.

Orr was the chief investigator in Glendale’s worst blaze, the College Hills fire, which damaged or destroyed 64 houses on June 27, 1990. City officials said they have found no evidence that Orr started that fire, but it will be included in the investigation.

Martin said the city’s investigators will receive legal advice from Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Cabral, who is overseeing a larger review of about 75 unsolved arson cases that occurred in recent years in the foothill areas between Sun Valley and Pasadena.

r Cabral said Tuesday that he will focus primarily on residential and brush fires, which were outside the scope of the recent federal investigation. Orr was indicted in federal court because setting store fires affects interstate trade.

Cabral said he will work with the same outside specialists who are assisting Glendale Police. He said he planned to meet with them and Glendale officials late this week to set up a strategy for looking at Orr’s cases and the area’s unsolved arson fires. Cabral would be responsible for filing criminal charges if evidence of a crime is uncovered.

“We’ll be coordinating together,” the prosecutor said. “I anticipate it being more than just sharing notes. Everybody’s going to be working together and reporting to me.”