James Bartels: 'Depressed' 911 operator sets 24 wildfires, says he 'gave firefighters something to do'
GREENFIELD, OHIO: Approximately 1,300 acres of national parkland in Ohio were burned by a roaring wildfire last month. According to a criminal complaint, the fire was started by a down-and-out emergency responder who did it to keep the local firemen from getting bored. Former Greenfield Township Volunteer Fire Department 911 dispatcher James A Bartels is accused of "timber set afire," which is the federal court system's equivalent of arson. The complaint claims that Bartels, 50, started at least 24 fires in the Wayne National Forest over a period of time.
According to the complaint, Bartels was questioned by USFS agents on December 8. “During the interview, Bartels admitted to lighting multiple fires on Wayne National Forest with a lighter,” it states. “Bartels said he started the fires to give the boys something to do and to distract himself from depression.”
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According to the complaint, investigators provided Bartels a map with all of the most recent unsolved arson fires marked on it and asked him to identify the ones he ignited with a checkmark and those he didn't with an 'X' mark. According to the report, Bartels marked 26 fires with checkmarks and nine with Xs.
The federal government received location information from Bartels' truck's infotainment system on Monday, December 19, as per the complaint. The location of the vehicle was subsequently determined by plotting the coordinates on a map, which revealed that it had been "in close to 24 fires, most of them 1 to 2 hours before they were reported to 911."
The complaint, which was filed on Tuesday, December 20, in US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, claims that Bartels, who ran unsuccessfully for a fiscal officer of Greenfield Township in 2007, first raised suspicions last April when he "discovered an unreported fire" at around 12:30 am, as reported by The Daily Beast.
According to the complaint made by a US Forest Service (USFS) special agent, a state natural resource officer saw Bartels' pickup truck in late October about an hour before a wildfire started nearby. “On November 8, 2022, within days of Bartels’ resignation from Gallia County 911 dispatch, at least 17 fires were lit,” the complaint goes on. An eyewitness “positively identified Bartels’ truck, a Burgundy 2021 Ford F-250, with blackout package, at two separate locations in the vicinity of multiple fire starts, within minutes of their ignition,” it says. Authorities reported that 1,300 acres of the Wayne National Forest were destroyed by the flames two days later.
Bartels may spend up to five years behind bars if found guilty of only one count of setting timber on fire. The number of counts that Bartels will ultimately be charged with is not stated in the complaint. His attorney is not yet mentioned in court records.
Previously, a 911 operator in the Syracuse, New York, region was charged with third-degree arson last year after it was claimed that he set fire to his own house. The chief arson investigator for the Glendale Fire Department in Southern California was accused of intentionally starting almost 2,000 fires throughout the 1980s and 1990s. According to the National Volunteer Fire Council, roughly 100 firemen nationally are accused of setting fires each year.