LOS ANGELES — The Station fire has been classified as an arson, and authorities have launched a homicide investigation as two firefighters were killed battling it.
The massive blaze has been under investigation for days, with the focus being a road turnout along Angeles Crest Highway north of La Canada Flintridge, a city in the foothills north of downtown Los Angeles.
“Forensic examination has led this team effort to conclude . . . that it was an act of arson,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore.
The Station fire, which has burned about 144,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest, is the largest fire in Los Angeles County history.
The two firefighters died Sunday when their truck plunged off a steep mountain road.
On Wednesday, investigators hunched under a scorched, 20-foot-tall oak tree off Angeles Crest Highway, using wire mesh sifters to search through the ash in an attempt to determine whether the Station fire was deliberately set.
Near Mile Marker 29, authorities were treating the fire’s suspected ignition site as a crime scene. Yellow tape cordoned off the area, and authorities blocked the highway, turning away even transportation workers and earthmovers.
