Rick Stiever is a man of simple means. The unassuming veteran of the Humboldt County Fire Department is a lean, goateed man of 46 years who enjoys his dogs, woodworking, and a good Sudoku puzzle. By the looks of it, he is not the kind of man one would associate with ‘00s-era indie rock or ravenously hot sex, respectively, and yet he has been a guardian angel of sorts for both.

“Look, I wish I had never heard of these Kings Of Leon jokers, but here we are,” Rick told us over Zoom. As the story goes, multiple reports of sex fires started surfacing in early 2009. Initially thought of as a humorous oddity, casualties notwithstanding, a panic slowly started to take shape as more and more reports cropped up across the country. Why were people’s sex on fire? And also, why was there an iPod Mini

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