The State - News from Feb. 12, 1989

A part-time window washer was convicted of starting the “49er” brush and forest fire that blackened 33,000 acres and destroyed 200 homes in the Nevada County area last September. Sutter County Superior Court Judge Timothy Evans, who presided over the jury trial in Yuba City after a change of venue, must now decide whether the defendant, Gary (The Bucket) Parris, 39, of Grass Valley, is insane. Parris testified that supernatural beings propelled a gust of wind that blew away burning strips cut from paper bags that he had used as toilet paper.