Woman charged with starting 63,000-acre Delta wildfire in Shasta County

A firefighter sprays down a burned big rig truck that was abandoned along Interstate 5 as the Delta Fire tore through the region in Delta on Sept. 5, 2018. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

by: Los Angeles Times

Posted: May 5, 2021 / 09:33 PM PDT

Updated: May 5, 2021 / 09:34 PM PDT

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

A woman has been charged with starting the 2018 Delta wildfire in Shasta County, which quickly tore through more than 63,000 acres and destroyed dozens of properties.

Cynthia Ann Leroux, a 57-year-old resident of Mountain Gate in Shasta County, was arrested Wednesday and has been charged by the Shasta County district attorney’s office with 20 felony counts of arson and two special-circumstance allegations of arson with aggravating factors.

The charges related to the Delta fire include two counts of arson that caused great bodily injury during a state of emergency and 16 counts of arson of a structure, property or forest land during a state of emergency.

At a media briefing Wednesday, Shasta County Dist. Atty. Stephanie Bridgett said Leroux’s actions had left a truck driver hospitalized with burns and another truck driver with a head injury.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.