No Evidence So Far to Tie Arson Suspect to Wildfires : Disaster: Investigation of man charged with mailing threats continues. Callers believe they saw him near blazes.

Property seized from a man charged with threatening to set Southern California fires has so far not linked him directly to the recent blazes, but he remains a key suspect and investigators have received calls from tipsters who believe they saw him near fire scenes, sources said Tuesday.

Investigators still are poring over material seized from the home and car of Thomas Lee Larsen--identified by authorities as “Fedbuster,” author of a letter threatening to set fires to “settle a score” with the government. Among other things, investigators seized Larsen’s personal computer and stacks of notes and personal poems, his parents said in an interview Tuesday.

Agent Larry Cornelison, who heads the arson task force of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ Los Angeles office, declined to comment on evidence obtained through the searches of Larsen’s Van Nuys home and car Sunday. But he said: “To my knowledge, there was nothing that caused anyone to breathe heavy and have their eyes roll back in their head. . . . There was nothing on the surface that was all that encouraging.”

In Orange County, officials investigating another destructive fire said a teen-age girl provided information leading to the arrest of a 17-year-old high school dropout who authorities believe intentionally started the blaze near Villa Park.

The girl called an arson investigator and gave him the names of the suspect and other youths who were apparently gathered at a popular meeting place at the end of Queens Drive near where the fire began.

The informant was not at the hillside hangout that night, said Rich Alarcon, a fire investigator for the city of Orange.

The boy, whose name was not released, was arrested after allegedly telling investigators he was “just screwing around” with several friends in the Anaheim Hills brush when the fire started. According to investigators, the boy said he dropped a match and did not mean to cause the devastating Oct. 27 wildfire, which burned 750 acres, damaged 27 homes and destroyed two others.

Law enforcement officers were immediately suspicious of that claim. “You can’t light a match in a 50-mile-an-hour wind, let alone drop it,” said one officer familiar with the case.

Although Anaheim Fire Investigator Mike Doty declined to comment on whether he thought the boy set the fire to cause destruction or was merely acting recklessly, he said authorities have concluded that the boy intentionally set the blaze.

The teen-ager could be arraigned on arson charges as early as today, officials added.

Meanwhile, agents in Los Angeles were sifting through the material seized from Larsen’s home. Some of it is being forwarded to FBI labs in Virginia for analysis, sources said.

Ernest Larsen, the suspect’s father, said he tried to convince agents that they would come up empty in their search.

“I told the people . . . here searching my house, I told them there was no way Tom could be involved with those fires because he was here in the house all the time,” Ernest Larsen said Tuesday in an interview with The Times. “He was sitting here reading and watching the TV with us.”

Although the seized property has so far not provided any solid leads connecting Larsen to the recent fires, Cornelison said other tips are pouring in. According to Cornelison, arson investigators were peppered with calls Tuesday from people who say they recognized Larsen from his photograph in television and newspaper reports. Some callers said they believe they saw Larsen near the site of one or more of the fires, Cornelison added.

Investigators are preparing a “six-pack” of photographs--side-by-side mug shots of Larsen and other men with similar looks--to show to those callers in order to determine whether it really was Larsen they saw. Officials have asked that people with information call a special arson hot line: (800) 47-ARSON.

Larsen has not been charged with arson, but sealed court documents obtained by The Times show that he is a suspect in at least five recent Southern California fires. According to an affidavit filed in support of the request for a search warrant of Larsen’s home, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents have concluded that “Larsen clearly and completely matches the profile of a serial arsonist.”

Larsen, 43, has spent years in and out of prison, convicted of child molestation, attack with a caustic chemical and counterfeiting, among other offenses. Court-appointed psychiatrists have consistently determined that he is mentally ill, and Larsen himself has acknowledged that in some of the many letters he has sent over the years to judges, prosecutors and others.

Larsen’s father, who owned a television repair shop on Van Nuys Boulevard for 20 years, acknowledged that his son is deeply disturbed. He said he hopes his son can see a psychiatrist and get the help he has needed--and largely refused--for decades. But Ernest Larsen, 77, insists that his son was as dismayed as anyone by the recent Southern California fires.

“I thought they were terrible, absolutely terrible,” Ernest Larsen said. “He thought it was terrible too. He thought it was awful the way all those people were getting burned out. . . . I’d put my hand on a stack of Bibles and swear that he had nothing to do with starting any fires.”

Thomas Larsen’s mother, Marie, also 77, said she does not remember him going out at all during the two weeks of firestorms that raged in the hills and canyons from Laguna Beach to Malibu.

“He’s home so much, I just can’t remember him being out. He goes to the store and he’s home in no time,” she said. “There’s the three of us and we all sort of live together. All I thought was, he didn’t do it. . . . He’s my only son, my only child. He’s tops. I adore him.”

More than a dozen Southern California agencies are participating in arson probes throughout the region. Investigators are particularly intent on finding the person responsible for starting last week’s Malibu fire, which killed three people.

According to tapes of calls to the 911 emergency number during that fire, a resident of Old Topanga Road called at 10:45 a.m. and said the fire was small but “burning very, very fast.”

The caller said the fire was moving downhill, across Old Topanga Canyon Road toward his property, known as Deer Creek Ranch. “Please hurry,” he said, breathlessly. “They can contain it, if they get here in five minutes, they’ll be OK.”

Fire Capt. Steven A. Valenzuela, a department spokesman, said that firefighters attacked the blaze as quickly as possible. Fire officials and records released by the department Tuesday indicated that the first fire engine arrived on the site about 12 minutes after the call.

Times staff writers Matt Lait, Josh Meyer and Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this report.

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