Two suspected arsonists arrested, connected to at least 5 Lincoln fires, Cal Fire says

A Lincoln man has been arrested for suspicion of arson after confessing to five fires between June and August of last year, Cal Fire announced.

Cal Fire investigators arrested 30-year-old Kyle Jeptha Bridgman, who said he set those fires in Lincoln between June 19 and Aug. 3, 2017, the agency said Wednesday in a news release. Bridgman has been booked into Placer County jail.

Authorities with Cal Fire, Placer County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, the Placer County District Attorney’s Office and the county probation department worked to identify and investigate Bridgman starting in 2017.

Booked into jail Tuesday morning, Bridgman is being held in lieu of $160,000 bail with a court date not yet set, inmate documents show.

“The community is safer today because of their extraordinary efforts,” Cal Fire Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit Chief George Morris III said in a statement.

The same investigation led to the arrest of another suspected arsonist, Gregory Scott Courtney, at the end of August 2018. Courtney, a 30-year-old Yuba City man, allegedly set “small spot fires” in grassy areas around Lincoln.

“They could have destroyed property and threatened lives, ”Cal Fire spokeswoman Mary Eldridge told The Bee at the time of Courtney’s arrest.

Scott is in Placer County jail on $2.4 million bail. He is scheduled to appear in the jail courtroom Oct. 15.