PHOENIX (AP) -- From careless campers to opportunistic arsonists, most of the wildfires that rage in the United States each year are started by people, fire officials say.
The 39,000-acre fire that burned hundreds of homes in the mountaintop summer vacation community of Summerhaven near Tucson was started June 17 by humans, though investigators haven't pinpointed the cause.
Whatever the reason, people started 84 percent of last year's wildfires, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Still, officials say most fires begin because of carelessness, not malice.
The largest wildfire in Colorado state history was started by Terry Barton, a former Forest Service employee, who is serving a six-year federal sentence after admitting she set the 137,000-acre fire when she threw a burning letter from her estranged husband into a campfire pit.
A state judge recently ordered her to pay restitution to people who lost their homes in the blaze.
More than 600 lightning-caused fires have burned about 30,000 acre but so far this year, almost 1,000 wildfires started by people in the Southwest have burned almost 60,000 acres.
Some individuals who start fires are pyromaniacs or are looking for an insurance payoff, said Rich Padilla, special agent for the Southwest region of the U.S. Forest Service. Others _ sometimes people who make money fighting fires _ start them for profit.
Last summer, contract firefighter Leonard Gregg was accused of setting one of the two fires that joined in a 469,000-acre wildfire that destroyed nearly 500 homes is suspected of starting hundreds of small fires. Gregg was a part-time firefighter who hoped to earn more money working on a fire crews, investigators have said. He still faces federal felony charges.
The second fire was started by Valinda Jo Elliott, a Phoenix woman who was trying to get the attention of a television news helicopter after being lost in the wilderness for two days. The wildfires eventually merged.
Padilla said he's also seen ``grudge fires.''
``We'll have someone who feels they were done a wrong, and they feel the way to get back at someone is to start a fire,'' he said.
Burn patterns and witnesses usually help fire investigators determine if a fire started because of arson, fireworks, children playing with matches, debris-burning, welding torches or vehicle exhaust, Padilla said.
Paul Steensland, a senior special agent for the Forest Service, said public education has helped keep more people from carelessly starting fires, but some start by sheer accident.
Steensland recalled a wildfire that started with the help of a marauding bear that kept charging a man's houseboat. To deter the animal, the man shot it with a flare gun and the bear took off with the flare embedded in its backside.
Steensland said witnesses told fire investigators that ``every few feet going up the slope, the bear would squat and drag its rear end to put the still-burning flare out.''
