The Associated Press
ANOKA, Minn. — A decorated firefighter with a history of erratic behavior was charged Wednesday with setting a fire that burned more than 2 square miles in and around a wildlife refuge.
John David Berken, 40, was accused of setting the blaze Monday at the Carlos Avery Wildlife Refuge, north of the Twin Cities. He was being held on $50,000 bail.
The criminal complaint said witnesses saw a man appearing to set a fire by throwing fireworks out of a car and into a ditch.
Sheriff’s deputies traced a license plate number provided by a witness to Berken, court documents said. Investigators found fireworks in Berken’s home and an explosives-sniffing dog detected residue on Berken’s car window and his fire gloves.
Berken was arrested as he helped fight the blaze, which didn’t destroy any buildings.
Berken, a four-year veteran with the Forest Lake fire department, was honored with three other firefighters in 2006 for rescuing a snowmobiler in the St. Croix River.
Records show that Berken once called the Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie in 1991 and threatened to blow it up. In a separate incident, he allegedly contacted an airport traffic control tower and told controllers that the pilot of his aircraft had a heart attack and that he needed help landing the plane.
He was sentenced in federal court to a year in prison for making false radio transmissions and also served about 20 months in prison in the 1990s on forgery and theft convictions.
Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Paul Sommer said investigators don’t know why Berken allegedly started the fire, but said that Berken had a “history of these sorts of odd behaviors that call attention to himself and causes some sort of public panic.”