San Diego Union Tribune
February 26, 2009

Click here for the complete after incident report (PDF File Download).

RIVERSIDE – Closing statements are scheduled Thursday in the trial of a former Beaumont mechanic who faces the death penalty if convicted of igniting a 2006 wildfire near Cabazon that claimed the lives of five federal firefighters. Testimony wrapped up Tuesday in Raymond Lee Oyler’s trial, as the prosecution called its final round of rebuttal witnesses.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge W. Charles Morgan gave jurors a one-day break Wednesday as the prosecution and defense pore over hundreds of exhibits, mainly photographs, to determine which ones jurors will have access to during deliberations.

Oyler, 38, is charged with five counts of first-degree murder in connection with the Oct. 26, 2006, Esperanza wildfire, which killed five U.S. Forest Service firefighters, scorched more than 41,000 acres and damaged or destroyed 54 homes and other structures.

Oyler is accused of setting a total of 23 wildland fires in the Banning Pass between May 16, 2006, and the day of Esperanza. Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin has described the fire-setting spree as an “arson series” during which the defendant allegedly “perfected and honed his skills.”

Oyler, who is charged with 39 counts of arson and being in possession of destructive devices, has denied any involvement in the blazes.

In the course of the five-week trial, Hestrin called arson investigators, DNA experts and eyewitnesses, some of whom alleged Oyler’s connection to fires in central Riverside County.
In a videotaped interview with a sheriff’s investigator the day after the Esperanza fire was set, Oyler told the man he had been gambling at the Morongo Casino in Cabazon around the time the blaze was lit, 1 a.m.

Oyler had been identified as a person of interest in the case because his vehicle was photographed by a surveillance camera leaving the scene of an Oct. 22, 2006, blaze near Banning. Oyler is charged with setting that 40-acre fire at Mias Canyon Road and Bluff Street.

A truck driver, James Carney, testified that in the first hour of the Esperanza wildfire, he spoke to a man he later identified as Oyler outside a Shell gas station in Cabazon, where the conflagration could be seen racing up hillsides.

USFS Engine 57 Capt. Mark Allen Loutzenhiser, 43, along with fellow firefighters Jason Robert McKay, 27, Jess Edward McLean, 27, and Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, perished in the Esperanza fire when flames swept over a home the crew was trying to defend near Twin Pines.

DONATIONS
A fund has been established for the families of the deceased firefighters. Checks should be made out to Riverside County, with a notation that the money is for the Firemen's Family Relief Fund. Mail checks to P.O. Box 1645, Riverside, CA 92502.