SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – A Northern California man could spend up to two decades in prison and pay a seven-figure fine after pleading guilty to serial arson in the state's largest national forest.
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Redding resident Eric Smith on Monday pleaded guilty to four counts of arson in Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The 41-year-old admitted he started at least 11 fires between June 2019 and July 2020, according to court documents cited in a U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California press release.
Smith will be sentenced in federal court in August, according to prosecutors, facing the maximum of a 20-year prison sentence and $1 million fine.
On Oct. 7, 2020, federal prosecutors first charged Smith with four counts of setting fire to federal land. U.S. Forest Service investigators alleged prior to his arrest that July that Smith started a handful of fires between June 23 and July 25, 2020.
Officials on Monday said that Smith used cigarette lighters, handheld torches and other ignition sources that were hard to detect, and his fires' frequent early morning starts made detection and firefighting "potentially more difficult."
A July 2020 fire Smith ignited burned about a mile from an Interstate 5 exit, prompting closures as firefighters extinguished it before reaching the highway.
Shasta-Trinity's press office didn't respond to KCBS Radio's emailed request for comment prior to publication on Monday night.
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