Serial arsonist in Yakima County sentenced to 20 years in prison

A Yakima man was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for setting fires on federal land and the Yakama Nation reservation between 2023 and 2024.

While Chief U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian appreciated Zachary Vantuyl’s willingness to accept responsibility, he believed a harsh sentence was necessary.

“You have a fascination with fire,” Bastian told Vantuyl during the sentencing hearing Monday in the William O. Douglas Federal Courthouse in Yakima. “You need help with that.”

Vantuyl, 34, pleaded guilty in January to four counts of arson on federal land and single counts of setting fire to timber and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Vantuyl also agreed to pay $1 million restitution, a task that his attorney, Craig Webster, said will likely take Vantuyl’s entire life to complete.

Prosecutors said Vantuyl set fires on the Yakama Reservation and in and near the Yakima River Canyon in 2023 and 2024.

Court documents state that Vantuyl set a fire in the 700 block of Hubbard Lane in White Swan, Yakima County, on May 15, 2023. At that fire, Vantuyl was seen driving an ATV and wearing a yellow firefighter’s jacket, saying he was a volunteer firefighter for Ellensburg.

The property belonged to Vantuyl’s landlord at the time, and Vantuyl was living there, the documents said. A fire investigator noticed other fires along the ATV track.

The next two fires, the South Slope and Roza Slope fires, were set in the canyon Sept. 12, 2023. A Bureau of Land Management investigator determined that someone used a flare gun to start both fires, the court documents said.

A witness saw Vantuyl’s truck above the Roza dam in the area of the Roza Slope Fire, the documents said. The two fires burned a total of 541 acres and aircraft were deployed to put out the flames.

On Sept. 3, 2024, a fire burned next to Burbank Creek Road in the Yakima Canyon on state Department of Natural Resources land, reaching 50 acres.

A witness told Bureau of Land Management investigators that he saw Vantuyl’s truck “peeling out” from the area just before flames became visible, with Vantuyl saying he was with DNR.

His truck was seen by a Kittitas County firefighter at the scene later.

On Sept. 25, 2024, Selah firefighters were called to a wildfire on BLM land in the Yakima River Canyon. The Selah Butte Fire, as it is referred to, burned 200 acres of land and was deemed arson.

A Selah firefighter saw Vantuyl’s pickup speeding away from the fire scene, only to return 15 minutes later as its driver watched the fire.

In return for the plea, the U.S. attorney’s office dropped two counts of arson on federal property involving the Roza Fire and the Yakima River fires in June 2024.

Vantuyl has prior convictions for first- and second-degree arson for a string of five fires set in Ellensburg in 2012, including one at the Ellensburg First United Methodist Church that destroyed the church’s clothing bank. He also was blamed for trying to set fire to the FISH food bank. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In late April, Bastian told both sides that he couldn’t accept their recommended sentences because he believed they were too short based on Vantuyl’s past record and the threat to public safety he posed.

Bastian pointed out during the sentencing hearing that Vantuyl had been convicted of reckless burning as a juvenile when he was 16 and observed that the only time Vantuyl wasn’t setting fires appeared to be when he was in custody.

Accepting responsibility

Vantuyl told Bastian in court about the setbacks he experienced in his life, including being born prematurely, having been run over by a tractor as a child, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and dealing with the death of his grandfather.

But he has taken steps to straighten out his life, maintaining a 3.3 GPA — a B-plus — while earning his associate degree.

But in the case of the fire down in Harrah, Yakima County, Vantuyl was accused but not charged with setting additional fires on the land and killing some of his landlord’s animals. His landlord’s wife, Assistant U.S. Attorney Letitia Sikes said, didn’t file reports out if fear that Vantuyl was going to set fire to their home if they had reported him.

In a recorded jail phone call, Vantuyl was boasting that he would only get seven years in the case, Sikes said.

The fires he set did more than just burn trees and sagebrush. They put firefighters’ lives in danger, Sikes said. She described watching a helicopter fighting one of the fires drawing water, and thinking how dangerous that was for chopper crew with the winds they were coping with.

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Bastian commended Vantuyl for the efforts he has made at improving himself while in jail or prison, as well as accepting responsibility.

“It proves that when you put your mind to something, you can accomplish it,” Bastian said. “Unfortunately, when you’re out of custody, you don’t put your mind to good things.”

Bastian said the fires were inherently dangerous to the general public — as shown by the fact that each one was given a name by firefighters — as well as the “brave men and women who fight them.”