Colin Atagi
The Press Democrat
(TNS)
A Cal Fire employee from Healdsburg is being charged with five counts of arson stemming from a series of fires ignited across Sonoma County over the past month.
Robert Hernandez, 38, appeared in Sonoma County Superior Court on Tuesday, following his arrest Friday morning at the Howard Forest Fire Station in Willits.
Sitting among other incarcerated defendants, he remained silent while often shaking his head back and forth.
Hernandez was initially incarcerated at the Sonoma County jail in lieu of $2 million bail before Judge Troye Shaffer on Tuesday ordered he be held without bail.
The judge scheduled a bail hearing for Oct. 1.
Hernandez was identified as a fire apparatus engineer — who operates and maintains fire engines during emergency responses — and accused of starting the fires while off duty, according to Cal Fire.
His status with the agency was not immediately clear Tuesday.
Ari Hirschfield, a Cal Fire spokesperson, told The Press Democrat Tuesday the agency is not commenting on the case.
“We don’t have any outlook on when we will have more information regarding this incident,” Hirschfield said in an email.
Hernandez did not enter a plea Tuesday and his attorney, Orchid Vaghti, declined to comment when approached by multiple reporters outside Shaffer’s courtroom.
Charges were filed late Monday by the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office.
They pertain to the Alexander Fire on Aug. 15, the Windsor River Road Fire on Sept. 8, the Geysers Fire on Sept. 12, and the Geyser and Kinley fires on Sept. 14.
All were near Geyserville, Healdsburg and Windsor and burned less than an acre in total, Cal Fire officials said Friday following Hernandez’s arrest.
The first count, which relates to the Aug. 15 fire, includes an enhancement of arson during a state of emergency.
Also referenced in Hernandez’s complaint is a prior conviction of gross vehicular manslaughter stemming from a July 2016 collision in San Bernardino County.
Cal Fire said it has arrested 91 suspected arsonists this year as of Sept. 1.
That was prior to the arrests of two local arson suspects: Hernandez and Santa Rosa resident James Conforti, who also appeared in court Tuesday.
Prosecutors charged him Monday with four counts of arson related to three fires near Southwest Community Park and one outside Meadow View Elementary School, on Dutton Meadow.
Santa Rosa police arrested him Friday night following an investigation into the fires, which occurred Sept. 16 and Sept. 17 and Thursday and Friday that same week.
The first three fires burned less than an acre between them and no injuries were reported, according to the Santa Rosa Fire Department.
The school fire burned about a quarter of an acre and forced students and staff to shelter in place due to smoke in the area.
Conforti appeared before Judge Robert LaForge, who kept his bail at $150,000.
He’s being represented by the Sonoma County Public Defender’s Office and is scheduled to return to court Oct. 8 to enter a plea.
During Tuesday’s proceedings, Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Jason Rifkind told LaForge that Conforti claimed to investigators he was trying to use fire to clean the park.
You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi
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