Hunter can't elude suspicion, ire

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE ^ | January 18, 2004 | By Alex Roth and Marisa Taylor

[Ramonan]

WEST COVINA – Fame never seemed to be the destiny of Sergio Martinez, the man suspected of igniting the biggest wildfire this state has ever seen. At age 33, Martinez lives with his parents in a working-class section of this Los Angeles suburb, where he was a high school wrestler of moderate talent and had decent but unspectacular grades. People who know him say he's a nice enough guy. He works for a large housing developer and drives a pickup. Despite a college degree in accounting, he once ran up so much credit-card debt that he was forced to declare personal bankruptcy. His criminal record includes convictions for drunken driving and marijuana possession and, as a teenager, a weapons charge.

He has much bigger problems these days – problems that have made his name well known in San Diego County and beyond. He is now infamous as the lost hunter suspected of triggering the Cedar fire, which killed 17 people, destroyed more than 2,300 homes and burned a 40-mile swath from the mountains of Julian to the city of San Diego. In the past three months, Martinez has been trailed by the news media, vilified by fire victims, ridiculed by other hunters and grilled by federal investigators. He has received crank calls and death threats, his lawyer says. The 273,000-acre fire was ignited in the Cleveland National Forest on Oct. 25, but federal officials haven't filed any charges against Martinez, who remains free to go about his daily routine. These days, he commutes more than an hour to his job at a housing development near the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia, 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego says the case remains under review. There seems little or no doubt that Martinez, who was deer hunting with a buddy that day, somehow set off the blaze after getting lost. The question is how he started it, and why.

Martinez's lawyer, who is also his cousin, says his client "is completely tormented" by what happened but that he didn't commit a crime. Martinez, for his part, refuses to make any statements. "Talk to my lawyers," he told a Union-Tribune reporter recently when approached at his job for an interview. Then he rolled up the window of his pickup and drove away. "How did it start?" the fire dispatcher inquired.

It was the night of Oct. 25, and the Cedar fire had begun to spread in the Cleveland National Forest, several miles east of San Diego Country Estates. "Lost hunter," a fellow dispatcher responded. "Big overweight hunter, gets sick, gets dehydrated. He's lost, he sets the fire because he's lost and he wants someone to find him." One of the dispatchers described Martinez as "dehydrated and out of his mind," according to a transcript of several hours' worth of phone calls placed to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's El Cajon office that night. The dispatcher reported that Martinez was "unable to give a clear statement."

[Ramonan]

The point is--The press is attempting to give this guy a PASS. Why? Because he went out without preparing, didn't know where he was, got dehydrated and SET A FIRE so they would find him. And now, they are also boo-hooing because citizens have exercised their right to free speech ( like the press has a right to print what it wants to) and blamed this idiot for his actions.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The real criminals in this situation are the enviro-wackos whose religious devotion to extremist forest policies allowed millions of tons of flammable biomass to accumulate for decades.

This was eventually going to happen, and the longer it took to happen, the worse it was going to be.

[South40]

Sparky, himself. What's that in his hand...a beer?