A Suspected Arsonist Allegedly Torched a San Diego Canyon — Again. The System That Was Supposed to Stop Him Didn’t.
A brush fire broke out in Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve on the afternoon of Sunday, August 16, prompting evacuation orders in the Sorrento Valley area of San Diego. By the time crews reached full containment, the Sorrento Fire had burned an estimated 138 acres, up from an initial 131-acre estimate. No structures were destroyed and no injuries were reported — a fact firefighters credit in part to a resource-heavy response: up to 160 personnel, 54 engines and support units, and five fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters working the canyon’s dry brush.
The next day, San Diego police arrested Brandon Glasgo, 30, after a resident spotted him walking out of the brush as flames spread nearby. Prosecutors say he later admitted to starting the fire. On August 19, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office charged Glasgo with one felony count of arson of forest land. He was arraigned that day, pleaded not guilty, and was released on $75,000 bail with GPS monitoring and a court order barring him from possessing any incendiary device. His next hearing is scheduled for August 27.
Glasgo is presumed innocent of the arson charge, which remains pending. What isn’t in dispute is the file that preceded it: documented homelessness and mental illness, a 2024 conviction for resisting a police officer, and a set of fall-2025 charges — still unresolved — that include threatening public employees and battery. It is also, according to local reporting, the second fire investigators have connected to Glasgo in that same stretch of canyon in roughly two months.
- 138 acres burned in Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve — up from an initial 131-acre estimate as crews mapped the perimeter — Cal Fire incident report; KPBS
- 160 / 54 fire personnel and units deployed at the fire’s peak, backed by five fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft — San Diego Fire-Rescue Department
- $75,000 bail set at Glasgo’s Aug. 19 arraignment, with GPS monitoring and a no-incendiary-devices condition — San Diego County Superior Court
- 6 years the maximum state-prison exposure Glasgo faces if convicted on the single felony arson count — California Penal Code § 451(c)(2)
- 2nd fire in this canyon preserve investigators have connected to Glasgo in roughly two months — local reporting on Glasgo’s case history
Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve is one of San Diego’s largest urban open spaces, a stretch of chaparral and riparian habitat running between Sorrento Valley and Rancho Peñasquitos. The Sorrento Fire ignited Sunday afternoon in dense, dry brush inside the preserve and spread quickly enough that San Diego Fire-Rescue, joined by Cal Fire and mutual-aid crews from around the county, ordered evacuations for nearby homes and businesses along Sorrento Valley Boulevard. Aerial units — fixed-wing air tankers and helicopters — made repeated retardant and water drops through the afternoon and into the evening, working to keep the fire from reaching surrounding neighborhoods before ground crews could cut handline.
By the time it was fully contained, ground crews had cut nearly a mile of handline and laid more than 2,300 feet of hose. The acreage total crept upward as the mapped perimeter was refined — from an early 131-acre estimate to a final count of roughly 138 acres — but the outcome held: zero structures lost, zero injuries reported.
The arrest came fast by wildfire-investigation standards. On Monday, August 17, a resident near the preserve told police he saw a man matching Glasgo’s description walking out of the brush as flames spread behind him. San Diego police located and arrested Glasgo shortly after. SDPD Officer Colin Steinbroner, addressing reporters afterward, said a suspect’s mental state in a case like this can be unpredictable, and that officers try to get someone off the street and into custody quickly for exactly that reason — the risk isn’t only what already happened, it’s what might happen next while he’s still out there.
#SorrentoFire [Update]: SDFD is in unified command with multiple partner agencies responding a 30-40 acre fire near Sorrento Valley Blvd. Moderate to heavy fuels, moving East with a dangerous rate of spread. Please follow evacuations warnings and orders.
Prosecutors later said Glasgo admitted to starting the fire during questioning, though that admission — like the charge itself — remains contested by the defense and unproven in court. He was booked into county jail on suspicion of arson, and the case moved to the District Attorney’s Office within 48 hours.
Glasgo’s record didn’t start with the Sorrento Fire. In 2024, he pleaded guilty to resisting a police officer — a closed, adjudicated conviction, not an allegation. In the fall of 2025, prosecutors charged him separately with threatening public employees, battery, obstruction and resisting a peace officer, and injury to an elder or dependent adult; those charges remain pending and unresolved, and under the presumption of innocence they are allegations, not proven facts. According to court records reviewed by local outlets, Glasgo’s own father once petitioned for a domestic-violence restraining order against him — a filing that points to a family already flagging a pattern of instability well before this August.
Local reporting on his case has also connected Glasgo to an earlier fire in that same stretch of Los Peñasquitos Canyon roughly two months before the Sorrento Fire — meaning, if that reporting holds, this wasn’t the first time investigators had reason to look at him before flames returned to the same ground. None of that turns an unresolved 2025 charge into a conviction, and none of it proves the arson count. But taken with a documented history of homelessness and mental illness, it describes a man already on the radar of San Diego’s courts, its police department and his own family — and still free to be walking out of that brush on August 16.
#SorrentoFire the fire is currently 131 acres; 0% contained. A total of 54 units & 160 fire personnel are currently engaged in fire suppression operations...
The case is being prosecuted by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, not the mayor’s office or the city attorney’s — a distinction worth being precise about, because it’s the DA who controls charging decisions. Deputy District Attorney Jacob Carbajal filed the arson count and argued at the arraignment that the fire’s cost went well beyond the acreage burned.
“It's been detrimental to the community, especially here now during fire season in the summer, so it's been a huge impact for what seems like a small act.”
Jacob Carbajal · Deputy District Attorney, San Diego County · Aug. 19, 2026
District Attorney Summer Stephan, who oversees Carbajal’s office, is registered as an independent with no party preference — not a Democrat, not a Republican, an unusual fact in a county where nearly every other countywide office is held by one party or the other. San Diego’s broader public-safety and homelessness policy is set at the city level, by Mayor Todd Gloria (D) and City Attorney Heather Ferbert (D). No source reviewed for this story ties either of them personally to Glasgo’s case specifically; the honest version of the accountability question here is systemic, not personal — a homeless, mentally ill man with a fresh conviction and pending charges was still free to allegedly light a second fire in the same canyon.
District Attorney: Summer Stephan — registered independent, no party preference; her office, not the mayor’s, is prosecuting Glasgo.
Deputy District Attorney (line prosecutor): Jacob Carbajal — filed the felony arson count.
Mayor: Todd Gloria (D) — sets citywide public-safety and homelessness policy; not personally tied to this case by any source reviewed.
City Attorney: Heather Ferbert (D) — handles the city’s civil legal matters; not personally tied to this case by any source reviewed.
Arson of forest land is charged under California Penal Code § 451(c)(2), a felony that carries a maximum of two, four or six years in state prison depending on the specifics a jury finds. Six years is the number that will show up in most headlines about this case, and it is a ceiling, not a guarantee — actual sentencing, if it gets that far, depends on a conviction that hasn’t happened yet. For now, Glasgo is out on $75,000 bail, wearing a GPS monitor, and barred by court order from possessing lighters, matches or any other incendiary device. His next hearing is set for August 27.
SDFD Deputy Chief Eddy, describing the aerial response that helped keep the fire from reaching homes, said the aircraft “were a huge help for us today in stopping the forward rate of spread.” Nearby resident Cameron Schmid and volunteer Kristina Quandt both described a similar frustration in the fire’s aftermath: this wasn’t the neighborhood’s first time watching smoke rise from that canyon this year, and it was hard to shake the sense it wouldn’t be the last.
A man with documented homelessness, mental illness, a 2024 conviction and pending 2025 charges is now charged with felony arson for a fire that burned 138 acres and drew 160 personnel and 54 units — and, per local reporting, wasn’t the first fire investigators have connected to him in that same canyon. He’s presumed innocent on the arson charge. What isn’t in question is that San Diego’s courts, police and his own family all had a documented reason to be watching Brandon Glasgo before August 16 — and he was free anyway.
