The San José Police Department arrested a man believed to be responsible for a series of car arsons that left 24 cars burned in neighbors across San José.
Jose Rodriguez-Barran, an unhoused 30-year-old San José resident, was taken into custody on Jan. 30 and booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on multiple arson counts, drug charges and outstanding warrants, according to a press release from SJPD.
Katelin Uy, a second-year psychology student at San José State, said she was surprised she hadn’t heard about the car fires until recently despite the arsons beginning on Dec. 18, 2025, according to an Jan. 28 ABC 7 article.
“There should be more awareness about it, especially because I haven’t even heard of it from SJSU,” Uy said.
The morning of Dec. 18, San José firefighters responded to a total of four fires, each at different locations near Willow Glen neighborhood, according to ABC7 News.
Investigators concluded he set approximately five car fires on Wednesday, Jan. 21 between midnight and 1:30 a.m., as well as six fires on Tuesday, Jan. 27 around 2:30 a.m, according to KRON4 News.
“It is pretty scary to think about, especially since there’s so many (cars) parked in a single line,” Uy said. “The fact that it can just ignite one single street of cars is pretty scary to think about.”
Although the fires seemed to start with one car because of how close cars park to each other on streets, the fires quickly spread to surrounding vehicles, according to ABC7 News.
Most cars involved were left almost completely in ashes, with only the bare metal frame left standing, according to KTVU FOX 2 News.
Eion Fofana, a first-year SJSU student, said the absence of a clear motivation to the arson was unsettling.
“I couldn’t really think of a motive as to why someone would deliberately spend time and energy to burn down other people’s cars,” Fofana said. “The absence of clear intention made the situation all the more unsettling.”
Fires on Jan. 21 damaged nine vehicles near Highway 87 and West San Carlos Street. An additional 11 vehicles were set on fire on Jan. 27 along the Highway 87 corridor, according to Kron4 News.
Of the 11 vehicles that were damaged on Jan. 27, six were located near the driveway of Aden’s Test Only and Willow Glen Auto Electric, close to Almanden Road near Highway 87. An employee reported that surveillance footage shows a man dismounting a bicycle and approaching the vehicles before setting them on fire, according to ABC7 News.
Police say the arrest was the result of hours of work done by the San José Police Department (SJPD) and the San José Fire Department’s (SJFD) Arson Unit, which searched hours of surveillance footage and interviewed victims and witnesses, according to the San José Police Department.
“While there is no perfect way to prevent this sort of incident, there are systems that can be implemented to mitigate the damage another attack like this would cause,” Fofana said.
My Nguyen, a first-year Electrical Engineering student at SJSU and a San José resident, said the car fires have impacted how safe people feel in downtown San José.
“I do kind of worry when I’m around downtown because it does seem pretty dangerous,” Nguyen said. “…There’s not a lot of security for public parking.”
Nguyen and Fofana agreed that the victims should be provided with adequate assistance following the fires as well as emotional reconciliation.
“This is a really strange case and I believe more should be done to investigate the motives behind why this incident happened in the first place,” Fofana said.
