Photo: Guadalupe Molina-Pacheco
August 20, 2020 – Ventura County, Ca.
With fires raging and temperatures at record highs throughout the state, anyone found to be in
the proximity of the outbreak of a new conflagration is immediately suspected of knowing
something about how the fire started.
When, on the afternoon of August 19th , Ventura County Fire Department personnel responded
to what Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Det. Gregg Delarosa described as “a
brush fire” in the vicinity of Santa Paula Creek, “the fire was moving up the hillside.” In a short
time, the fire engulfed three acres before firefighters managed to contain it.
As the fire was suppressed, however, arson investigators arrived on scene and quickly
determined that the blaze was in fact, “the result of arson.”
A search of the area for possible suspects lead deputies to make contact with 30-year-old
Guadalupe Molina-Pacheco. A brief interview with Molina-Pacheco soon had him in handcuffs.
He was then transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was charged with felony arson and
then posed for a mugshot that may earn him poster-boy status as the clichéd profile of a
firebug.
