SACRAMENTO — A former college professor from the South Bay was sentenced Thursday to five years and three months in federal prison for setting a series of fires near the record-breaking Dixie Fire in summer 2021, according to authorities.
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Gary Stephen Maynard, 49, of San Jose, pleaded guilty in February to three counts of arson on federal property.
Maynard admitted to setting four fires in summer 2021 — the Cascade Fire on July 20, the Everitt Fire on July 21, and the Ranch and Conard fires on Aug. 7, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. They were lit in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and in the vicinity of the then-burning Dixie Fire in the Lassen National Forest.
“Maynard went on an arson spree on federal land while California faced one of the worst fire seasons in history,” U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert said. “He intentionally made a dangerous situation more perilous by setting some of his fires behind the men and women fighting the Dixie Fire, potentially cutting off any chance of escape.”
The Dixie Fire ignited on July 13, 2021, after a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power line hit a tree. Over the next three and a half months, the fire burned 963,309 acres in five counties. It remains the largest single-source wildfire in the state’s recorded history.
Authorities first encountered Maynard while investigating the Cascade Fire on July 20, 2021. He was arrested the following month after a tracking device placed on his Kia Soul recorded his movements in forestland between Redding and Susanville. Three fires — the Moon, Ranch and Conard — were located along his route.
The probe led authorities to contact the San Jose Police Department, which told them one of Maynard’s colleagues had raised concerns about his well-being in fall 2020.
Maynard served as an adjunct faculty member at Santa Clara University from September 2019 to December 2020. He also taught online courses during the pandemic at Sonoma State University, Monterey Peninsula College and Chapman University.
In addition to sentencing Maynard to prison, a judge ordered him to serve three years of supervised release and to pay about $13,000 in restitution, according to authorities.
