A 24-year-old man accused of igniting five spot fires in a Riverside nature preserve must stand trial on five counts of arson, a judge ruled Thursday.
Andrew Gonzalo Chairez was arrested last July following a joint investigation by the Riverside Fire and Police Departments.
At the end of a preliminary hearing Thursday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge John Nguyen ruled there was sufficient evidence to bound Chairez over for trial on all the felony charges filed against him.
The judge scheduled a post-preliminary hearing arraignment for Sept. 3 at the Riverside Hall of Justice and permitted the defendant to remain free on a $35,000 bond.
The non-injury arson fires started just before 7 a.m. on July 19, 2024, in the southeastern quarter of Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park, near Eastridge Avenue and Lance Drive, according to the fire department.
Battalion Chief Bruce Vanderhorst said six engine crews — numbering almost two-dozen personnel — were sent to the location and encountered flames burning in medium brush near the Ralphs Distribution warehouse that abuts the preserve.
Vanderhorst said crews counted a total of five spots ablaze and deployed into the brush using “two four-wheel-drive vehicles and a four-wheel-drive brush truck.”
“Firefighters developed a plan using the patrols and brush truck to make access into the area to extinguish the fires without destroying natural habitat,” he said.
While heading into the 1,500-acre park, which is state-owned but managed by the city, crews found an “adult male who admitted to starting the fires,” according to the battalion chief.
A possible motive wasn’t mentioned. Itinerants are known to frequent the area.
Vanderhorst said arson and police investigators were summoned and took Chairez into custody without incident.
The fires altogether scorched a half-acre. The last one was completely extinguished at 11:45 that morning, Vanderhorst said.
Sycamore Canyon, which is wedged between housing developments in the Canyon Crest and Orangecrest neighborhoods, had not been hit by brush fires since the summer of 2019, when there were two that investigators suspected were the result of human activity, though no one was arrested.
Those fires, which occurred barely two months apart, consumed a total of 500 acres, leaving burn scars that did not entirely disappear until almost four years later.
Chairez has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.