![\"\"](\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CalaverasDA.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCount I alleges that Smith recklessly caused a fire with great bodily injury in violation of Penal Code section 452(a), a felony, with additional special allegations that more than one firefighter was injured.<\/p>\n
Count II alleges that Smith recklessly caused fire to an inhabited structure in violation of Penal Code section 452(b), a felony, with a special allegation that multiple structures were burned.<\/p>\n
Count III alleges that Smith committed a violation of Penal Code section 192(b), involuntary manslaughter for causing the death of a human being, a felony.<\/p>\n
Count IV alleges that Smith recklessly caused a fire of forest land, in violation of Penal Code section 452(c), a felony. Counts V and VI are misdemeanor Public Resource Code section 4427 and 4422(b) violations alleging that Smith operated equipment capable of producing sparks in vegetation without complying with the fire prevention requirements and that he allowed the fire to escape his control, respectively.<\/p>\n
While in court before the Honorable Judge Timothy S. Healy, Smith was also arraigned on a separate felony complaint alleging that on September 11, 2026, he possessed methamphetamine after having been convicted of two or more prior qualifying drug offenses, in violation of Health & Safety Code section 11395(b)(1), a felony.<\/p>\n
In that complaint, Smith is also alleged to have possessed drug use paraphernalia in violation of Health & Safety Code section 11364(a), a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n
At arraignment on these matters in open court, Judge Healy noted the danger to the public posed by Smith and set bail above the standard amount in the Gann Fire case, resulting in a total of $170,000 for both cases combined.<\/p>\n
Further, Judge Healy ordered that Smith will have to prove to the court that the funds came from a legitimate source pursuant to Penal Code section 1275.1 before being permitted to post bail.<\/p>\n
Smith is due back in court on October 6, 2026, at 1:30 pm in Department 1 for continued arraignment.<\/p>\n
Arraignment on a criminal complaint does not constitute a finding of guilt, and all individuals are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Statements issued by the District Attorney\u2019s Office at this stage of the prosecution are limited by law in order to preserve the integrity of the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
San Andreas, CA…On September 15, 2026, a Valley Springs man, Herbert Wayne Smith, 65, was arraigned in Calaveras County Superior Court on charges related to the August 3, 2026 Gann Fire. A criminal complaint filed by the Calaveras County District Attorney alleges that Smith committed six (6) separate offenses related to the Gann Fire, four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,20,16,1,8,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-angels-camp","category-featured","category-law-enforcement","category-news","category-san-andreas","category-valley-springs","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CalaverasDA.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205062,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205060\/revisions\/205062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/205061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}