San Bernardino Fire Probe Is Stymied by Lack of Evidence

Even before the San Bernardino County fire that destroyed 1,000 homes last October was extinguished, arson investigators had what seemed like a solid lead: Three witnesses reported having seen the passenger of a white van flicking burning objects into dry brush where the blaze started.

Nearly a year later, investigators said they have made significant progress but are frustrated that they don’t have enough evidence to make an arrest.

In January in Los Angeles County, San Bernardino County sheriff’s investigators found what they believe is the van and traced it back to a home near San Bernardino.

Detectives contacted the van’s owner, who they said has been cooperative and is not a suspect. But they have now focused their attention on a man in his early 20s who they believe could be the arsonist.

Based on evidence they would not reveal, investigators believe that man and a second person, whose identity authorities have not confirmed, were in the van Oct. 25 when the fire started. The second man could have been the driver, they said.

However, investigators said they lack physical evidence connecting the men to the fire. Crime scene investigators failed to find any evidence inside the van that could help with the probe.

“We’d be real close to making the case if we got the driver’s identity,” said Sgt. Bobby Dean in an interview with The Times this week. “The key now is the information we can receive from the community.... We’ve accomplished a lot in a year, but we need this information.”

Detectives continue to circulate a sketch of the driver’s face, which is based on the accounts of two of the witnesses.

The witnesses include a man working in a field near Highway 18 and at least two motorists. All said they saw the van’s passenger throwing something on fire into the dry brush in Waterman Canyon on the morning of Oct. 25. But they said they did not see his face.

When the Old fire was set, most San Bernardino area firefighters were on the lines 25 miles to the west, near Rancho Cucamonga, battling the Grand Prix fire. Before it was contained in early November, the Old Fire burned more than 90,000 acres and nearly 1,000 homes, and six elderly men in the path of the blaze died of heart attacks. The Sheriff’s Department has said those deaths could be classified as homicides if an arsonist is caught.

“It’s [been] a sense of helplessness: Here’s the biggest fire this county and most of Southern California has ever seen and there’s nothing we can do,” said Anne Marie Duncan, the deputy district attorney assigned to prosecute those responsible for the Old fire. “I’m sure if it can be resolved, they can resolve it. But all good things take time.”

Such feelings are not uncommon in arson investigations, considered among the hardest to prove because crime scene evidence is often destroyed.

For the first few months of the probe, investigators searched for the elusive white van. “A thousand tips, and a thousand dead ends,” Dean said.

One of those dead ends involved a 19-year-old from Del Rosa, one of the San Bernardino neighborhoods devastated by the fire.

He bore a striking resemblance to the police sketch of the suspected driver of the van, and at least three neighbors phoned detectives.

The teen said in an interview he thought it was a joke. He said he was working in Highland, tiling a home, on the morning of the fire, and that his father’s home sustained $125,000 in fire damage.

“I was a little scared,” he said. “I was watching TV, and people were saying that when they catch the arsonist they’d want to hang him.”

Sheriff’s Det. Gina Perez, who interviewed the teen at sheriff’s headquarters, said he was quickly ruled out as a suspect.

For residents who lost their homes and still struggle to rebuild their lives, the fact that the arsonist has not been brought to justice feels like unfinished business.

“Give me five minutes with him -- there’s not a person around here who wouldn’t want police to grab the guy and turn him loose anywhere in our neighborhood so we could get our hands on him,” said Bill Daugherty, 69, who saw his Del Rosa home of 26 years burn to the ground.

Added resident Arnie Johnson: “Something will happen someday, someway, somehow, and he’s going to get caught.”

Ginger Williams of Crestline, one of the San Bernardino Mountains communities hit by the fire, also hopes the case will be solved. Her 70-year-old husband, Chad, a former fire captain in the city of San Bernardino, died of a heart attack while the couple were fleeing their fire-threatened home.

“He took one last load of stuff -- a stack of cabinet drawers -- and when I looked down there, I saw him laying on the driveway,” Williams said. “I had a neighbor who’s a nurse help me try to revive him, and a paramedic came, but I heard him say, ‘It doesn’t look good.’ ”

On her husband’s death certificate, the cause of death is listed as “pending.”

“When they catch whoever did this, I’ve been told they’ll change ‘pending’ to ‘murder,’ ” Williams said. “My religion teaches me to hope for the salvation of all souls, but I know evil has a way of sneaking in, and I hope they can find this person to stop him from ever doing this again.”

Officials urge anyone with information about the driver of the van to call (909) 387-3589 or (909) 387-8313.