SACRAMENTO – A former Sonoma State University criminal justice professor pled guilty Thursday to starting multiple fires around the massive Dixie Fire and in Shasta County, prosecutors said.
Gary Maynard, 49, pleaded guilty to three counts of arson on federal land after prosecutors said he went on an arson spree in the Shasta Trinity National Forest and near the Dixie Fire in the Lassen National Forest in 2021.
Maynard set fires behind firefighters who were fighting one of California’s largest fires in state history. The Dixie Fire scorched more than 960,000 acres and burned for more than three months across Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta and Tehama counties.
The former professor admitted to setting the Cascade Fire on July 20, 2021, the Everitt Fire on July 21, 2021, the Ranch Fire on Aug. 7, 2021, and the Conard Fire on Aug. 7, 2021, prosecutors said.
“Witness 1 believed the man was mentally unstable, describing the man as, ‘mumbling a lot and having bipolar-like behavior,'” the court documents detailed.