Arson

Reporting from Vancouver, Canada, and Los Angeles -- The investigation of Hollywood arson suspect Harry Burkhart widened Thursday to include a probe by Canadian authorities into whether he was involved in a series of suspicious fires in Vancouver. Burkhart, who has been charged with 37 felony counts related to the New Year's weekend arson rampage, lived in Vancouver with his mother before moving to the Los Angeles area. Vancouver Police Department spokesman Lindsey Houghton said officials "have begun to liaise with the LAPD" but stressed that detectives have not connected Burkhart to any specific fires in that city.

In a case that has highlighted the perils of forensic science, a federal magistrate is expected to rule soon on whether a man convicted of a triple murder arson may be innocent. During a three-day hearing ordered by a federal appeals court, U.S. Magistrate Michael J. Seng heard evidence last week that suggested George Souliotes, 71, may have been wrongly convicted of setting a fire in a Modesto rental home he owned that killed three tenants: Michelle Jones, 31; and her children, Daniel Jones Jr., 8; and Amanda, 3. Jones' husband was not at home during the fire.

The FBI has arrested an environmental activist in connection with the attempted arson of unfinished town homes in Pasadena in 2006, authorities said today. Stephen James Murphy, 43, was arrested without incident Wednesday at his home in Arlington, Texas, after being named in a criminal complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. According to the complaint, the Pasadena Fire Department responded to a construction site on Sept. 19, 2006, and found what it described as a "crude incendiary device" made from cigarettes that had failed to ignite.

Marcel Melanson was a hero in Compton. The fire battalion chief led teams that raced to help victims of car crashes and street violence. Three years ago, he got national exposure as a star of a BET reality TV program that followed Compton firefighters on emergency calls. "We're constantly battling the perception of the city," he told the Los Angeles Times when the show premiered. "It's constantly thought of as this bad place. " On Friday, he was back in the public eye, but under very different circumstances.

Bureau of Indian Affairs arson investigators are in this Humboldt County town in response to a string of 50 fires that have plagued the Hoopa Valley for two weeks. "We have a terrible arson problem," said Hoopa Fire Department Management Officer Gary Risling. Since June 25, fires have left blackened spots along California 96. About 400 firefighters from the state Department of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service and other reservation fire departments have been battling the blazes.

A Los Angeles County Fire Department public information officer and his wife were charged with arson Thursday for allegedly setting ablaze an unoccupied Pasadena house last summer after their attempt to buy it failed. Roland Lee Sprewell, 37, was arrested by the San Gabriel Valley Arson Explosives Task Force for allegedly lighting a fire that severely damaged the house at 1541 N. Raymond Ave., Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, said.

A Western Illinois University freshman was charged Wednesday with allegedly starting eight fires in campus dormitories over the last year, prosecutors said. C. William DeGryse, 22, of Northbrook, was charged with eight counts of aggravated arson, eight counts of arson and eight counts of reckless conduct in fires dating to April 24, 1985, McDonough County prosecutors said.

Arson investigators Wednesday were seeking the cause of a suspicious brush fire that scorched 3 acres near O'Neill Regional Park but threatened no structures. The 4:50 p.m. blaze was near Oso Parkway and Felipe Road.

Arson incidents in the city rose in 1995, but so did arrests of suspected arsonists, police said this week. Statistics from the Fullerton Police Department's arson investigation detail show that 20 arson crimes were committed last year. In 1994, the number totaled 15. Authorities said that police arrested 10 suspected arsonists in 1995, however, and eight of those arrests resulted in felony convictions and prison sentences. Six suspected arsonists were arrested in 1994 and three were convicted.

An attorney whose office burned down two months ago escaped Wednesday morning with his family from his burning La Habra Heights home after an arsonist poured a flammable liquid through a pet door and set it on fire. "Someone had actually tied the garage door closed to prevent people from getting away," said Sheriff's Deputy Boris Nikolof. "Fortunately, the family was able to exit through another door." The damage to the house was extensive.