No chance at all the ROP, either a right wing firebug(media choice) or a lefty evio-terrorst...../sarcasm
Honestly, I think the most likely culprits could be people who are in financial trouble due to the real estate and mortgage markets. Getting insurance for a totally destroyed house would solve a lot of people’s problems right now (from individual homeowners to real estate developers), and having their loss be part of a large scale fire like this minimizes the chance that the circumstances of their particular home loss will be closely scrutinized by an insurer looking for evidence of arson. It appears that much of this fire originated from accidental causes, but the beginning of a big fire in their area could well have started a few people down the road of thinking “Actually it wouldn’t be so bad if my house (that I’m about to lose anyway) burned down” and then on to “I could make sure that happens”.