A former criminal justice professor who started at least seven fires in a year that included some of California’s most destructive wildfires — including igniting a blaze near the Dixie Fire in 2021 — was sentenced Thursday to five years and three months in prison, prosecutors said .
Gary Stephen Maynard, 49, pleaded guilty in February to three counts of arson on federal property. Prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum that Maynard exhibited wanton and deliberate actions while setting fires intended to harm individuals.
“He deliberately made a dangerous situation more dangerous by placing some of his fires behind the men and women fighting the Dixie Fire, potentially reducing any chance of escape,” U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert said in a statement. announced the verdict.
Maynard was arrested in August 2021 after investigators tracked his black Kia Soul hundreds of miles through Northern California. He filmed himself setting fires for which he has not been charged, prosecutors wrote.
Authorities first encountered Maynard during the July 2021 Cascade Fire, reported on the western slopes of Mount Shasta. According to previous Bee reports, the fire was prevented from spreading over an area of more than 100 to 200 square meters in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Siskiyou County.
The next day, investigators encountered tire tracks similar to those of a Kia hatchback at a fire along Everitt Memorial Highway in Mount Shasta, according to previous reports.
Authorities attached a tracking device to Maynard’s car and, also monitoring his EBT card usage, followed him through California. They located him near where the Ranch and Conard fires ignited in the Lassen National Forest.
He was eventually caught putting out fires in an evacuation zone behind firefighters battling the Dixie Fire, California’s second-largest wildfire, prosecutors said.
Maynard suffered from untreated mental health problems and was homeless when the arson began, according to a sentencing memorandum filed by his attorneys. He has attempted to treat his illness while in custody and will continue his treatment in prison, the defense wrote.
Maynard has taught at several schools, including as an adjunct faculty member in the sociology department at Santa Clara University and as a lecturer at Sonoma State University, specializing in criminal justice, cults and deviance.
