John Leonard Orr was born on April 26, 1949, in Glendale, California, and grew up in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The youngest of three children, Orr was raised in a working-class home — his father, Joe, was a machinist, while his mother, Leora, worked as a secretary. His parents divorced when he was young, a disruption that marked his early years. Orr became fascinated with fire during childhood, reportedly enthralled by neighborhood blazes extinguished by the Los Angeles Fire Department.

He attended Eagle Rock High School before enlisting in the United States Air Force at 17. During his military service, he married his high school sweetheart, Jody. After being discharged in 1971, Orr attempted to join both the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department, but failed due to a poor psychological evaluation and physical limitations, respectively. Undeterred, he studied fire science and worked various day jobs until finally being hired by the Glendale Fire Department in 1974, one of the lowest-paying departments in the county. He proved competent and steadily climbed the ranks, eventually becoming a respected fire captain and lead arson investigator.

On October 10, 1984, a deadly fire erupted at Ole’s Home Center, a hardware store in South Pasadena, California. The blaze claimed the lives of four victims: a two-year-old child, the child’s 50-year-old grandmother, a 26-year-old mother of two, and a 17-year-old employee. Initially, investigators believed faulty wiring was the cause, but Orr, serving as an arson investigator, insisted that it was deliberately set.

Between 1984 and 1991, a series of fires ravaged California, many displaying similar patterns. Investigators began suspecting that the arsonist was someone within the firefighting community. In 1991, a break in the case occurred when a fingerprint found on an incendiary device matched John Leonard Orr’s. He was arrested on December 4, 1991, and charged with multiple counts of arson.

Authorities later discovered a manuscript written by Orr, titled "Points of Origin," which eerily detailed the methods and motivations of an arsonist mirroring his own crimes. In 1992, he was convicted of three counts of arson and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. Further investigations linked him to the deadly 1984 fire, leading to charges of first-degree murder.

In 1998, a California state court convicted Orr on four counts of first-degree murder and multiple counts of arson. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 21 years for arson. His fires are believed to have caused losses worth over $30 million and resulted in at least four deaths. Orr remains incarcerated at California State Prison, Centinela.