The Sandalwood fire, named for a street near the mobile home park, began last Thursday around 2 p.m. and burned more than 1,000 acres over five days. It started when the driver of a garbage truck dumped a “hot load” — a pile of burning trash — along the side of 7th Street, said Capt. Fernando Herrera, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Garbage trucks often haul a dangerous cocktail of combustible items — batteries, pesticides, paint — and it’s not unheard of for drivers to dump a simmering load, Herrera said. Many residents of the mobile home park said it seemed unnecessarily reckless to drop the load next to a canyon of dry shrub backing up to the park. Ultimately, the fire destroyed 76 mobile homes and killed Arvickson and a second victim, whom officials haven’t yet publicly identified.