The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder, and the Agony of Engine 57

When a jury returns to a packed courtroom to announce its verdict in a capital murder case every noise, even a scraped chair or an opening door, resonates like a high-tension cable snap. Spectators stop rustling in their seats; prosecution and defens... Read more

When a jury returns to a packed courtroom to announce its verdict in a capital murder case every noise, even a scraped chair or an opening door, resonates like a high-tension cable snap. Spectators stop rustling in their seats; prosecution and defense lawyers and the accused stiffen into attitudes of wariness; and the judge looks on owlishly. In that atmosphere of heightened expectation the jury entered a Riverside County Superior Court room in southern California to render a decisionin the trial of Raymond Oyler, charged with murder for setting the Esperanza Fire of 2006, which killed a five-man Forest Service engine crew sent to fight the blaze.Today, wildland fire is everybody''s business, from the White House to the fireground. Wildfires have grown bigger, more intense, more destructive-and more expensive. Federal taxpayers, for example, footed most of the $16 million bill for fighting the Esperanza Fire. But the highest cost was the lives of the five-man crew of Engine 57, the first wildland engine crew ever to be wiped out by flames. They were caught in an ''area ignition,'' which in seconds covered three-quarters of a mile and swept the house they were defending on a dry ridge face, where human dwellings chew into previously wild and still unforgiving territory.John Maclean, award-winning author of three previous books on wildfire disasters, spent more than five years researching the Esperanza Fire and covering the trial of Raymond Oyler. Maclean offers an insider''s second-by-second account of the fire and the capture and prosecution of Oyler, the first person ever to be found guilty of murder for setting a wildland fire. Less