Guymon Man Charged with Arson After $500,000 Seaboard Plant Fire

Samuel Sobrevilla-Santos now faces a second-degree arson charge after the Texas County Sheriff's Office determined he was responsible for starting a fire that gutted the maintenance office at the Seaboard Foods Processing Plant at 3721 Road Z east of Guymon on February 28, causing an estimated $500,000 in damage.

The blaze destroyed vehicles and a building at the facility, drawing a response from the Guymon Fire Department, the Guymon Police Department, and the Texas County Sheriff's Office, which led the investigation. The scale of the damage, half a million dollars at one of the region's largest meat processing operations, made the cause of the fire a priority for investigators from the start.

Sobrevilla-Santos did not initially come to investigators' attention as an arson suspect. During the course of the fire investigation, officers with the Guymon Police Department arrested him on separate domestic assault charges. After he was taken into custody, investigators interviewed him about the February 28 fire and determined he was responsible for starting it, at which point the arson charge was added.

He now faces three charges in total: domestic assault and battery by strangulation and child neglect from the initial arrest, and second-degree arson stemming from the fire investigation. Bond was set at $10,000 in the domestic case and $250,000 in the arson case. Sobrevilla-Santos is currently held at the Texas County Detention Center.

Seaboard Foods, which operates a major hog processing plant that is one of the largest employers in the Texas County area, has not issued a public statement on the fire or its operational impact. The $500,000 damage estimate has not been publicly attributed to a specific assessor or agency.

All suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.