Arson team investigates San Jose State trash fires

SAN JOSE — State firefighting authorities have dispatched an arson investigation team to probe two trash-can fires they believe were intentionally set by the same person on the San Jose State University campus late last month.

In a Tuesday news release, Cal Fire’s Office of the State Fire Marshal also posted two security-camera images and a description of a person they suspect in the fire reported in the late afternoon March 31.

Capt. Frank Belcastro of the San Jose State University Police Department — which is jointly investigating the fire with the state fire marshal’s Arson and Bomb Unit — said the March 31 fire occurred in a seventh-floor men’s restroom of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library.

That fire was set in a trash can and was extinguished before it caused major damage, Belcastro said.

Then on Monday, another trash-can fire was discovered in an eighth-floor men’s restroom at the library. Belcastro said investigators believe the same person set both fires.

Security images show a person described as a suspect entering and exiting a restroom after apparently changing clothes and holding a red lighter, around the time of the March 31 fire.

Authorities are seeking assistance in identifying the person in the surveillance images, who they describe as a light-skinned person of unknown gender between their late 20s and early 30s, with a medium build, standing between 5-foot-8 and 6 feet tall and weighing between 150 and 180 pounds. The person was reportedly last seen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, mirrored sunglasses, a red tube top, dark blue pants, black shoes and carrying a tan-strapped bag.

Anyone with information for investigators can contact SJSU police at 408-924-2222 or the Cal Fire Arson and Bomb Unit at 213-302-5855 or arsonbomb@fire.ca.gov.