El Dorado County referenced arson arrest in Crozier Fire post. Police say arrest was unrelated

About four hours after the 1,187-acre Crozier Fire was started on Wednesday at around 1:21 a.m., the Placerville Police Department booked a man for an arson charge.

El Dorado County posted about the arrest and Crozier Fire on their Facebook page Thursday morning, stating that “the arrest that was made at the time close to the start of the #Cozierfire was done by Placerville PD, not the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office. Inquiries should be made to Placerville PD.”

Though the county discussed both the Crozier Fire and arrest in the same post, the Placerville Police Department has now revealed that there is no connection between the two and that the arrest itself occurred prior to the time the large fire was discovered.

“The arrest had nothing to do with the Crozier Fire,” said Placerville police operations commander Dan Maciel, who referred to the claim as a false rumor. “I don’t know where that information came from, but it’s been circulating.”

Fifty-year-old Daniel Derrick Horney, who a Sherriff’s Office spokesperson confirmed has been charged with arson, remains in police custody with bail set at $10,000. The El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the charges.

As of now, the police department spokesperson said they are unable to release additional information related to Horney’s arrest. Cal Fire is still investigating the cause of the Crozier Fire, which caused evacuations in areas like the rural community of Swansboro located north of Placerville.

In the day before the Crozier Fire started, smaller fires occurred in close proximity. The small Missouri Fire was first found at about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, and it appears to have been contained, according reports from the National Interagency Fire Center that are published by The Sacramento Bee. One fire in the community of Mosquito, which encompasses Swansboro, was reported at nearly 8 p.m. Tuesday. The Broadway Fire discovered at around 9:43 p.m. burned 0.3 acres of private property before being contained. Nancy Flanagan, who was evacuated from her property in Mosquito, said that her husband drove by one small fire on his way home from work shortly before the Crozier Fire began.

Sergeant Kyle Parker of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office said that the during the current fire season, which has put the county in a high fire severity zone, there have been several days where multiple small fires have been reported. Weather conditions make the environment more prone to fires that are not caused by humans, such as interactions between heat and power lines, Parker added. He cautioned locals, social media users and news outlets against continuing to mistakenly associate Horney with the Crozier Fire.

At a temporary daytime shelter for fire evacuees in Placerville, several residents said yesterday that they believed the Crozier Fire was caused by arson, even though Cal Fire and local authorities had not indicated a confirmed cause. Since the start of the fire, several social media users from the area have made posts falsely asserting that an arsonist was arrested for causing the blaze.

The fire is currently 5% contained.

This story was originally published August 8, 2024 at 10:34 AM.