Esperanza Fire Arsonist to Be Sentenced

Riverside (myFOXla.com) - A serial arsonist who lit a brush fire in Riverside County that killed five Forest Service firefighters is expected to be sentenced to death.

Raymond Lee Oyler, 38, was convicted of murdering fire Capt. Mark Allen Loutzenhiser, 43, and firefighters Pablo Cerda, 24, Jason Robert McKay, 27, Jess Edward McLean, 27, and Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20 as they battled the 41,000- acre Esperanza wildfire on Oct. 26, 2006. He was also convicted of 36 counts of arson and possessing destructive devices.

A four-man, eight-woman jury spent barely a day deliberating in March before deciding to recommend Oyler receive the death penalty for the crimes.

Judge W. Charles Morgan has the discretion to reduce Oyler's sentence to life in prison without parole, which defense attorneys Mark McDonald and Tom Eckhardt will request during the hearing.

Though acknowledging Oyler is an arsonist, his attorneys maintain he did not start the Esperanza blaze.

Oyler denied setting any of the fires. He told a sheriff's investigator that on the night of the Esperanza blaze, he split his time gambling at an Indian casino near Cabazon and taking care of his then-infant daughter at the family's Beaumont apartment.

According to the prosecution, Oyler ignited the wildfire just south of Cabazon in the middle of the night, during a Santa Ana windstorm, which quickly whipped the fire into an inferno that roared into the mountain communities of Poppet Flats, Silent Valley and Twin Pines.

Fifty-four homes and other structures were destroyed, as well as vehicles. Livestock and wildlife were killed, and a highway was significantly damaged.

Along with Riverside County fire crews, firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service responded to the blaze, including the crew of Engine 57, based in Idyllwild.

Loutzenhiser and his men went into the cauldron around dawn on the first day of the fire, taking up a position at the end of San Gorgonio View Road, north of Twin Pines.

The crew deployed around an octagon-shaped house that had been evacuated.

According to testimony given in Oyler's two-month trial, Loutzenhiser liked the location because there appeared to be adequate brush clearance, and there was a swimming pool from which the engine could draw water when its reserves ran out.

As the men prepared to defend the property, they were caught in what one witness described as a "burn-over," in which a wall of flame powered by high winds obliterate everything in its path.

Firefighters who came to the victims' aid moments later described a gruesome scene. None of the men had time to take cover, and several bodies were still burning. Cerda and Loutzenhiser lived through the burn-over, though both had burns to more than 90 percent of their bodies, and their lungs were damaged, according to testimony.

Loutzenhiser died within hours of being taken off the hilltop. Cerda underwent surgery and remained in a coma for two days until his family decided to take him off life support.

Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin said Oyler intentionally endangered fire crews' lives, lighting a fire in the dark of night in gusty winds, knowing full well air support would not be available.

The prosecutor said the defendant had been working up to lighting a monster fire throughout 2006, setting smaller blazes in mid-May of that year.

Witnesses described seeing a man of Oyler's description or a weather- beaten Ford Taurus the defendant owned leaving the scene of several fires. Forensic evidence collected from cigarettes used to ignite two June 2006 fires near Banning matched Oyler's DNA, according to testimony.

On the morning of the Esperanza blaze, a trucker recalled chatting with Oyler at a Cabazon gas station where the flames were clearly visible. The witness said Oyler told him the fire was behaving "just how I thought it would."