2 More County Fire Stations Are Burglarized : Crime: Newbury Park and Simi Valley facilities are latest victims. Detectives think the thief may be someone within the system.

Two more Ventura County fire stations have been burglarized while fire crews were away on a call, and the focus of the criminal investigation is narrowing to someone who knows department procedures, authorities said Thursday.

“We believe that it’s either an ex- or a current employee,” said Sgt. Harold Humphries of the county Sheriff’s Department, referring to the rash of petty burglaries that date back to at least February.

Sheriff’s Detective Stan Weber, a lead investigator in the case, said as many as 12 stations throughout the county have been hit, some more than once.

He said firefighters in Simi Valley, Ojai, Santa Paula, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Camarillo, among other communities, have been victimized.

The latest thefts occurred Wednesday night, one at a Newbury Park station about 10:35 p.m. and another in Simi Valley about an hour later. Those incidents bring to at least 17 the number of burglaries that have occurred while firefighters were out, at least six times on false alarms, Weber said.

Typically, the crimes involve only petty cash, and in none of the cases was there evidence that the thief had broken in, Weber said. He estimated the total loss in all 17 cases between $1,000 and $1,500.

“I think we’re going to have a meeting with department heads to find out how to stop this,” the detective said. “A lot of the brass are just getting aware of how big this is.”

As word of the burglaries spreads, fire officials have tightened security at the 30 stations throughout the county--from assuring that they remain locked while firefighters are on call, to changing the access codes that unlock their doors.

But the burglaries have continued, leading detectives to suspect the burglaries are inside jobs.

“It would have to be somebody within the system who knows the codes when they change,” Sgt. Humphries said.

County Fire Chief Jim Sewell, who joined the department Aug. 22, said fire officials have not determined conclusively if an employee is involved.

“We haven’t eliminated it but we haven’t focused on it,” he said. “It’s 50-50 now.”

As in two other station burglaries in Thousand Oaks, the first one Wednesday involved a false call made to Station 32 at 830 S. Reino Road. Capt. Murph Walshe said the call concerned a tennis player with a broken ankle at nearby Borchard Park.

But firefighters found no injured tennis player.

Although the three-man crew was away only about 10 minutes, they later found about $60 in cash missing from a locker, which was broken into with a bolt cutter, Walshe said.

Detective Weber said the locker, the only one that had been broken into, was where firefighters had kept their soft-drink money.

He said the thief seemed to know where to go.

In the second theft Wednesday, Station 43 at 1262 Cypress St. in Simi Valley was burglarized of $75 to $80, said firefighter Rick Bell.

He said the crew had been summoned to help Los Angeles County firefighters battle a blaze about 11 p.m., approximately 20 minutes after the Newbury Park crew returned to its station.

But the Simi Valley firefighters were called off by Los Angeles County about 40 minutes later, before they got to the fire, he said. The theft was not discovered until Thursday morning.

“I was lucky,” Bell said. “I happened to hide my wallet in my dirty clothes.”

Similar to the burglary at the Newbury Park station, which Capt. Walshe said has been hit three times now, were two thefts in Thousand Oaks. Both of those involved calls that a motorcyclist had been injured and both, Weber said, turned out to be false.

In yet another case, the crew at Station 25 at Seacliff on Pacific Coast Highway was summoned Aug. 10 to a garbage bin fire at the beachside campground at Faria County Park, Capt. Terry Tyner said. No fire was found and firefighters later found their soft-drink money was missing, he said.

“It could be (an inside job),” Weber said. “It obviously looks that way, like somebody who knows procedures, and how to get into stations.

“We had thought these had all stopped,” he added. “He sounds to me like he’s pretty brave. I don’t know if he doesn’t read the paper, or if he even cares, but this guy is fast, really fast.”

Weber said Crime Stoppers, a nonprofit community organization, has offered a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the burglar. Callers can remain anonymous.