Arson investigators blame teens for fire behind high schoolFree Access




A guardrail post burns during the Country fire on April 29 . Police have cited three local teenagers they think were responsible. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office is crediting members of the public with helping to identify three Thousand Oaks teenagers they say were responsible for igniting last week’s fire behind Westlake High School. The fire drew a huge response from multiple fire agencies and burned nearly 30 acres of chaparral.

The teens, two 14-year-olds and one 15-year-old, were cited Tuesday on suspicion of carelessly or negligently starting a fire. They were released to their parents, the department announced today.

Law enforcement has declined to release the names of the suspects because they are juveniles.

Asked whether the health and safety code under which the teens were cited was an indication that the sheriff’s office  believes the act was unintentional, Delarosa said it was more a matter of not knowing one way or another.

“There’s no way to say it was (or wasn’t),” the detective said.

The fire

Firefighters received a call around 3:30 p.m. April 29 about a blaze between Country Valley and Lakeview Canyon roads north of the high school. Personnel from Ventura and Los Angeles counties responded by land and air, with at least 10 different aircraft conducting water and slurry drops on the fire for two hours. A command center was set up in the school parking lot, and the sheriff’s department was called in to close roads and help evacuate nearby residents.

About the same time firefighters from Los Angeles and Ventura counties were responding to the fire, a small group of residents in the area saw three boys emerging from the brush, Detective Gregg Delarosa said.

The neighbors detained the boys until authorities arrived.

Arson investigators interviewed the three boys, all students at Westlake High School, and spoke to witnesses before deciding to release the teens to their parents, Delarosa said.

He said the neighbors’ intervention helped in the department’s investigation.

“Without the public’s swift action, it would have taken us much longer,” he said. “I am confident we would have caught them, but this makes it 100 times easier.”

Delarosa declined to comment about whether the teens had fire-starting equipment in their possession or whether they confessed to starting the fire. He did indicate the sheriff’s office may have video evidence.

“That gated community behind the high school has really good surveillance,” he said. “There’s really good cameras right there, and they caught everything.”

Two members of the Ventura County Fire Department had to be treated for minor injuries suffered during the firefight.

As of yet, the fire department has not calculated the financial toll of the fire and its resulting response. Included in the response were five water-dropping helicopters and four fixed-wing aircraft. The sheriff’s department and Los Angeles County first-responders’ efforts would be separate costs.

This story will be updated.