The Alexander Mountain fire was started by a Loveland man masquerading as law enforcement, the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday.
Jason Hobby, 49, was arrested Tuesday afternoon and booked into Larimer County Jail on charges of arson, menacing, impersonating law enforcement and false imprisonment, according to jail records.
Larimer County Sheriff John Feyen said Hobby used to work at Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch at the base of Alexander Mountain.
Hobby pretended to be law enforcement and fire personnel, stopping travelers in the area during the fire, pointing weapons at them and accusing them of trespassing, Feyen said.
Feyen said Hobby drove a red pickup truck he modified to look like a fire response vehicle. Emblems added to the truck read “ Twin Buttes Fire Protection District.”
“From our research and our investigation, we cannot identify a Twin Buttes Fire Department anywhere,” Feyen said. “He had fire gear … It had hose reels, it had drip cans, it was hard to tell to the point where he was able to pass through, inappropriately, roadblocks to get to the fire scene.”
Sheriff’s officials originally discovered the more than 9,600-acre fire was human-caused in early August, and said Wednesday they plan to release more information about the suspect and arrest in a 1 p.m. news conference.
The Alexander Mountain fire started on Monday, July 29 and burned for more than two weeks on private and national forest land just west of Loveland before crews were able to contain the flames.
Containment isn’t the end of a fire — it’s merely a control line that firefighters expect to stop the flames’ spread. A wildfire can continue to burn for days or weeks after being fully contained.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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