19 Southland Fires Called Suspicious : Investigation: Officials believe the blazes are the work of more than one person. Agencies are pooling information in a massive hunt for the arsonists.

Arsonists may have set as many as 19 of the 26 fires that ravaged Southern California in the past two weeks, federal officials said Friday as they unveiled the first comprehensive look at an astonishing crime rampage responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

According to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the 19 fires are considered either the work of arsonists or of “suspicious origin.” The two largest fires, the Calabasas/Malibu and Laguna Beach blazes, were set by arsonists, authorities said. Arson has been ruled out in six fires, and the Altadena blaze has been labeled an accidental fire started by a transient trying to keep warm.

“This has to be one of the biggest tragedies ever attributable to arson,” said Larry Cornelison, group supervisor for the bureau’s arson task force in Los Angeles. “It took such a toll in damage and human misery. And to know that individuals were responsible for this makes it even worse.”

In some cases, newspapers and gasoline were used to light fires, and road flares or more sophisticated devices were employed to spark some of the blazes. In still others, the device remains a mystery: The Calabasas/Malibu fire, for instance, is attributed to an arsonist, but the chief investigator for that probe said any number of devices--a match, say, or a candle or lighter--could have provided the initial spark.

That spark started an inferno that engulfed the hills above Malibu and rampaged to the Pacific Ocean. On Friday, weary firefighters around Malibu continued to stamp out hot spots and small flare-ups--all that remained of a 10-day string of blazes that cut a swath across Southern California.

With all but the smallest embers from the Malibu blaze finally extinguished, residents huddled with insurance representatives and straggled back to scorched neighborhoods, starting the long process of rebuilding.

The findings released by the federal agency set the stage for a massive manhunt that investigators hope will be aided by public outrage and by the promise of large rewards. Investigators already have received hundreds of tips and have begun questioning witnesses and people who have reported suspicious behavior by friends or associates.

The deluge of tips gives investigators plenty of leads to pursue, and authorities have asked that anyone with information come forward. At the same time, however, it has created a huge workload for detectives, forcing them to wade through mountains of messages and concentrate first on those that appear to have the greatest chance of bearing fruit.

“There are a lot of calls coming in,” Cornelison said. “We can only be hopeful that they will generate some leads and that one will blossom.”

Investigators with each local fire department and law enforcement agency are spearheading their own probes, but they are being assisted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, the state fire marshal’s office, the California Department of Forestry and others. All told, more than a dozen agencies are cooperating, making the current slew of arson investigations one of the largest in history.

The enormous number of people devoted to the probes has heartened investigators, who say that task forces greatly increase chances of apprehending suspects. That, investigators say, is because joint investigations allow agencies to pool information and to search for patterns in the fires that are believed to have been deliberately set.

“Statistically, arson is an extremely difficult crime to solve,” said Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agent Gus Gary, an arson specialist who works at the FBI scientific analysis section in Quantico, Va. “But our recent experience indicates to me that in major arson cases, our solution rate seems to be much higher.”

One early conclusion of the investigators is that the arson fires of the past two weeks, many of which were minor, are the work of more than one person. A single serial arsonist simply could not have moved around fast enough to light all the fires, some of which erupted within minutes of each other in far-flung locations, officials said.

Moreover, sources close to the investigation say, the variety of devices used to start the fires suggest that several arsonists were responsible.

Cornelison declined to comment on the specifics of the investigations but confirmed that agents are searching for more than one culprit. “We have several individuals who appear to be responsible,” he said.

Three men have been arrested in recent days, but none of them appear to be connected with any of the major fires that scorched the region.

One of the men was arrested on suspicion of impersonating a firefighter and possessing stolen property. But the man--an Orange County resident who allegedly was carrying a police scanner and fake fire department identification cards in his car--was not charged with arson. He was released Friday after his alibi for the day of the Laguna Beach fire checked out.

Another man was arrested in Thousand Oaks and charged with arson, but authorities said he was a suspect only in a small fire set in a tree. That suspect was sitting in the branches of the tree where he allegedly set the fire. He suffered minor injuries when firefighters knocked him down with a blast from a fire hose.

A third man was arrested on suspicion of arson in Yorba Linda on Friday. He was near a fire that consumed a quarter of an acre of grass. Although Orange County authorities said they were questioning the 28-year-old man in connection with other Southern California brush fires, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arson investigator said he had found no evidence to link the man to the blazes.

Although the three men are not suspects in the major blazes of the past two weeks, authorities continue to hunt for the author of a mysterious letter sent to roughly 35 Southern California law enforcement agencies. In that letter, a man identifying himself as “Fedbuster” threatened to “set a big fire” because he was angry with government agents for seizing property from him.

Although investigators say the threat alone does not mean that the author of the letter set any fires, arson experts note that many repeat arsonists act out of anger or revenge. Gary, the arson specialist, would not comment on the Fedbuster letter, but he said half of all repeat arsonists set their fires in an effort to exact some vengeance.

The initial emphasis of the arson investigations has been to determine the cause of each fire and to interview people in the vicinity of the fires. Investigators say that as the probes continue, however, they expect to field more leads from friends and acquaintances of people who may have set the fires.

“In situations where you have a great deal of damage or loss of life, the people close to the offender become more aware,” Gary said. “They start to notice things, and they start to take comments that the offender makes seriously.”

Authorities are encouraging anyone wishing to provide information on the origin of any of the Southern California fires to call (800) 47-ARSON.

While investigators joined forces to identify arsonists, weary fire crews tamped out the final embers of the spectacular Calabasas/Malibu fire, and survivors of the conflagration that claimed 350 homes and three lives took the first steps on the long road back to normality.

Clutching sheaves of insurance papers and charred mementos, uprooted residents of the scorched canyons and hillsides worked the phones from hotel rooms and second homes, settling down to the nuts and bolts of rebuilding from the charred ground up. On Malibu Pier, three insurance companies had set up mobile offices to handle claims. And frazzled students at Pepperdine University returned to classes, safe at last from the flames that earlier in the week had come perilously close to consuming the campus.

Local and state leaders met at Malibu City Hall, where Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris told the officials how his city recovered from its 1991 fire disaster. State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said new insurance regulations should speed the payment of claims to fire victims, and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) announced that more insurance advice will be available at a public meeting to be held at Pepperdine on Monday.

Even as some residents took their first wary steps back into the fire zones, officials continued to advise caution.

A mild Santa Ana wind, with gusts of up to 30 m.p.h. in the mountains, was predicted for today, and arsonists were expected to continue to pose a threat.

In Canyon Country, for instance, deputies were looking into a small brush fire that was ignited about 11 p.m. in the 15000 block of Sierra Highway, said Lt. Dan Reidder of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department station in Santa Clarita. A bottle with a rag in it was found on the ashes of the blaze, which scorched about 100 square feet of grass, authorities said. The fire was quickly extinguished after a passing motorist spotted the flames and telephoned the nearest sheriff’s station, the lieutenant said.

Like most of the fires from the past two weeks, that one was put out with no loss of life. The Calabasas/Malibu fire was the only one of the blazes to cause any fatalities, and officials Friday were attempting to confirm the identity of two more apparent victims.

The two corpses, discovered near Rambla Pacifico in a remote area of Starlight Ranch behind Carbon Canyon, raised the fire-related death toll to three. The victims were believed by neighbors to be Donn and Amy Yarrow, a retired philosophy teacher and postal worker, respectively, who had lived on a hilltop ridge for 40 years, eschewing electricity and running water in favor of a solar panel and a well.

Co-workers of Amy Yarrow, who recently retired from the Santa Monica post office, described her as a rugged individualist whose daily commute began at the end of a rutted and rock-strewn dirt road and who often slept in her camper in the parking lot when wet weather made her drive home hazardous.

It was that truck, friends said, that was found in the acrid embers of the wildfire. Because she did the driving, and because one body was found outside the vehicle, they speculated that Donn Yarrow had gotten out of the truck either to scout the fire or to move an obstacle from the road, and that the couple was then consumed by the blaze.

But coroner’s officials refused to confirm the identification, saying the bodies were so badly burned that they were unable even to determine the sex of the victims, let alone immediately pin down their identities or cause of death. Sheriff’s officials said the investigation is continuing.

In the other fire-related death, 41-year-old Duncan Gibbins died after trying to save his Siamese cat, Elsa. Gibbins died Wednesday night in a burn center in Sherman Oaks. The cat survived, and was found huddled under the Topanga Canyon guest house where Gibbins lived.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has announced a new annual award in Gibbins’ name for heroism in saving an animal in distress. Madeline Bernstein, the society’s West Coast vice president, said acts of courage displayed by pet owners during the fire showed that “few material possessions mean as much as the family dog, cat, bird or horse.”

Tearful fire victims received hugs and were the subject of prayers Friday evening at the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue, which itself was within 50 feet of being burned.

“The very fact we are here and gathered is itself a testimony to the miracle of survival,” Rabbi Benjamin Herson told an overflow crowd. As the fire raced toward the facility, which includes a preschool, on Tuesday evening, synagogue officials fought the flames with buckets of water and hoses.

Times staff writers Bob Pool, Jim Rainey and Ken Ellingwood contributed to this report.

* RELATED STORIES, A23-A26, B1, D1

Suspicious Blazes

These are the Southland fires that are believed to be arson or of suspicious origin in the last 11 days. The Altadena fire is considered accidental. Six other blazes have been ruled to be non-arson fires attributed to downed power lines and the like.

DATE/TIME LOCATION Oct. 26, 1:18 p.m. Thousand Oaks Oct. 26, 10 p.m. La Habra Heights Oct. 26, 11 p.m. Villa Park Oct. 26, Midnight Box Springs Oct. 27, 1:26 a.m. Chatsworth Oct. 27, 2 a.m. Rancho Palos Verdes Oct. 27, 2 a.m. Newhall Oct. 27, 2:03 a.m. Steckel Park Oct. 27, 4:40 a.m. Westlake/Potrero Oct. 27, 11:20 a.m. Ojai Oct. 27, 11:50 a.m. Laguna Beach Oct. 27, Noon to 2 p.m. Ramona Oct. 27, Noon to 2 p.m. Ramona Oct. 27, 4 p.m. Temecula Oct. 27, 4:36 p.m. Ortega Oct. 27, Evening Rancho Santa Margarita Oct. 29, Late afternoon Dana Point Oct. 29, Evening Capistrano Beach Nov. 2, 10:46 a.m. Calabasas/Malibu

SOURCE: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms