A California firefighter has been arrested and accused of setting five blazes in the state's wine country, even as his fellow firefighters battle flames that have consumed almost a million acres and forced thousands of evacuations in the state this year.

A California firefighter was arrested on suspicion of arson in a series of small fires that burned in wine country in recent weeks, officials said Friday.

Plucked out of South Australia’s wine country in the 2021 draft, Roberts played one game in his debut season before watching Geelong hand Sydney an 81-point thrashing in the 2022 decider from the sidelines. He squeezed into the senior side as a substitute in 2023, but a medial knee injury kept him to just six games.