Father and Son Arrested for Arson in California's Massive Caldor Fire

Joel B. PollakDecember 9, 2021

Police arrested David Smith, 66, of Somerset, California, and his son Travis Smith, 32, of Folsom, on suspicion of starting the massive Caldor Fire, which devastated communities near Lake Tahoe in an unusually dangerous fire season this summer.

The Caldor Fire burned 221,835 acres and spread rapidly in high winds, threatening communities around Lake Tahoe and forcing some evacuations until firefighters managed to tame the fire by clearing firebreaks in the path of the raging blaze.

Now, arrests have been made — though the attorney for the father and son say that all they did was call 911 about the fire.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

A father and son have been arrested in connection with starting the Caldor Fire, which incinerated most of the El Dorado County community of Grizzly Flats, threatened South Lake Tahoe, destroyed more than 1,000 structures and caused several injuries, according to the El Dorado District Attorney’s Office.

…

District attorney’s officials said in a statement Wednesday that the reckless arson “caused inhabited properties to burn and resulted in great bodily injury to multiple victims.”

The men were arrested through Ramey warrants, which are warrants issued before criminal charges are filed against suspects, district attorney’s officials said.

It was not clear what evidence linked the pair to the fire. The district attorney’s office of El Dorado County said in a statement posted on Facebook: “The El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office worked together with the USDA Forest Service, Cal Fire, the California Department of Justice and the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Crime Lab to investigate the cause of the Caldor Fire.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.