Efforts to reach Mr. Smith on Thursday were not immediately successful, and it was unclear if he had a lawyer. “I turned around, and all of a sudden I just I noticed fire was behind me,” Mr. Smith told the news outlet. Mr. Wachter said winds had been relatively calm this week but could pick up slightly in the coming days and make firefighting more challenging. “We’ve had that air-conditioning effect at times,” which has slowed the process of making vegetation especially flammable, Mr. Wachter said. The post One Dead in California Fire Started by Man Who Said He Lit It by Accident appeared first on New York Times.