[symple_googlemap title=”Homeless arrest Sylmar” location=”Gavina Avenue and Pacoima Canyon Road, Sylmar, CA” height=”300″ zoom=”16″]
A homeless man was in custody Wednesday on suspicion of carelessly starting a fire that scorched about three acres of brush in the Sylmar area.
Firefighters from the Angeles National Forest and Los Angeles city and county fire departments were sent to the area near Gavina Avenue and Pacoima Canyon Road shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday and had the blaze largely doused by around 1:50 p.m.
No structures were threatened by the fire, which burned slowly uphill as firefighters attacked it from the ground and air.
The suspicious nature of the fire prompted an arson investigation, a county fire department inspector said.
Investigators subsequently arrested a 28-year-old homeless man on suspicion of “recklessly starting an unlawful fire,” Lt. David Holwager of the sheriff’s Crescenta Valley Station said.
He was found walking from the area where the fire was burning when a deputy detained him, Holwager said. The man made statements alleging that he started the fire, but how he did so was under investigation.
“It wasn’t a malicious thing, it was a negligent thing,” Holwager said without elaboration.
The man’s name was not immediately released.
—City News Service