Trial of suspect in Esperanza fire begins

Raymond Lee Oyler, who is charged with setting the October 2006 Esperanza fire that killed five firefighters, was a serial arsonist whose girlfriend once gave him an ultimatum to stop setting fires or she would leave him, prosecutors said Thursday.

In opening statements at Oyler’s trial, Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Hestrin told jurors that the 38-year-old auto mechanic had set more than 20 fires in the San Gorgonio Pass area in the months before the fatal blaze.

Each time, the fires got bigger, Hestrin said, growing from 10 acres to 60 acres to 1,500 acres.

And then, Hestrin said, a little after 1 a.m. on Oct. 26, 2006, when Santa Ana winds were buffeting the region, Oyler created the “perfect storm” of a fire. Touched off a few feet from Esperanza Avenue in Cabazon, the fire rocketed up a gully, reaching speeds of 40 mph with flames soaring 100 feet high. Temperatures hit 1,300 degrees. Guardrails along Highway 243 melted.

Hestrin described the flames as rolling like water over the five firefighters of Engine 57 who were battling to save a house on an isolated dirt road in the San Jacinto Mountains. Three perished on the spot, and two died later.

“It burned their skin, it burned flesh and it left white bones in places,” he continued, as family members of the victims and the accused listened in the packed courtroom. “The violence is unimaginable.”

Mark McDonald, Oyler’s attorney, said prosecutors had theories, not facts. He rejected the idea that his client was a serial arsonist and said Oyler had no connection to the fire.

“I’m not saying he hasn’t set any fires,” he said later outside court, “just not the Esperanza fire.”

McDonald hopes to prove that another man was responsible, a firefighter who was in the area when the blaze began.

According to Hestrin, Oyler told a witness that he planned to set the fire as a diversion to break his pit bull out of an animal control facility where it had been taken for biting someone.

“His girlfriend will tell you that he was going to ‘set the hill on fire’ and rescue the dog during the confusion,” Hestrin told jurors.

McDonald disputed that, saying Oyler got his dog back the day before the fire.

The prosecution said Oyler had used similar incendiary devices in every incident. In the Esperanza fire, a handful of wooden matches were bundled around a Marlboro cigarette with a rubber band and set in the brush. The cigarette was lit, giving the arsonist about 10 minutes to get away before it reached the matches and sparked the fire. Other times, matches were placed on a lighted cigarette.

Hestrin said Oyler’s DNA was found on cigarettes used in two arsons.

“His girlfriend will say that she knew he was setting fires. And she gave him an ultimatum to stop setting fires or, she said, ‘I will leave you,’ ” Hestrin said. “This happened after a Moreno Valley fire shut down the 60 Freeway. They were watching television and he said, ‘I did that.’ ”

Chastened by his girlfriend, with whom he had a 6-month-old child, Oyler stopped setting fires for six weeks, Hestrin said.

The prosecution also showed pictures from a gas station security camera in Banning recorded minutes after the Esperanza fire broke out. A truck driver, now a witness in the case, spoke with a man he later identified as Oyler lingering around the pumps.

“It was the perfect place to view the fire,” Hestrin said. “The two made small talk and then [Oyler] said, ‘The fire is acting exactly how I thought it would.’ ”

McDonald told the court that there was no DNA connecting Oyler to the Esperanza fire. He also said a key witness got involved only after she learned she might get a reward. He said prosecutors had overcharged Oyler for the sake of arresting someone in a highly emotional case.

Oyler himself says he was home watching his son the night of the fire, later going out to the Morongo Indian casino.

The only witness Thursday was California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Battalion Chief Andrew Bennett, the first incident commander who arrived that night. He said the speed of the fire was a dynamic he had not experienced in decades as a firefighter -- a rolling wave of flame moving at incredible speeds. “It was a tube of fire,” he said.

The trial continues Monday. If convicted, Oyler could face the death penalty.

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david.kelly@latimes.com