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Authorities seek serial arsonist in Maiden

Fire marshal, SBI are investigating nine fires over past five years in area.

Ragan Robinson | Hickory Daily Record

Vicki Simons looks at the spot where the outside of her Maiden mobile home burned Thursday night.

WANT TO HELP

Anyone with information about the fires in Maiden Wood Circle should call the Catawba County Fire Marshal’s office at 465-8238.

By Ragan Robinson | Hickory Daily Record

Published: July 10, 2009

MAIDEN - Bruce Gwinn thinks he left for work Thursday about the same time an arsonist was setting fire to his neighbor's mobile home.

"If I'd looked up, I'd probably have seen him running away," Gwinn said.

He and other residents are on their guard at Maiden Wood Circle, the mobile- and manufactured-home community where authorities are on the trail of a serial arsonist.

The Catawba County Fire Marshal's office, with help from the SBI, are investigating nine fires, some with similarities, ruled as arson over the past five years.

Neighbors say they have an idea about who's setting the fires. Boggs said investigators believe the suspect, or suspects, live in the area.

"We are looking at persons of interest at this point," he said. "We have several persons of interest that we are trying to conduct interviews with."

Before the two most recent fires, the residences were empty when blazes broke out. In the last two, people were home.

"If the same individual is responsible for all of the ones, most certainly his fire setting is getting a lot more dangerous," Boggs said.

No one has to tell Maiden Wood Circle residents that.

"Everybody over here is scared," said Vicki Simons.

She lives with her husband, Rodney Simons, and two teenage sons in the home where the latest blaze erupted Thursday morning.

Vicki Simons saw flames climbing up the outside of her mobile home shortly before 7 a.m.

A few minutes before, she'd been dozing on the couch, no more than 10 feet from where the fire started outside. Her sons, 13 and 19, along with a friend, were asleep in a back bedroom with a fan running on high.

"They wouldn't have heard it," she said. "The firemen said if I hadn't noticed it when I did, we'd all have been dead."

When she woke the boys, 19-year-old Joseph Simons grabbed a water hose while his friend, Nathan Tiffany, used a bucket to sling water on the spots the hose couldn't reach.

"Those boys were heroes yesterday," Vicki Simons said.

While the fire was terrifying for the Simons family, it wasn't a complete surprise.

Homes across the street, around the curve and up the road have all gone up in flames in recent years.

"It's getting monotonous," said Rodney Simons, who also said his trucks have been broken into four times since the family moved there five years ago.

Jason Huffman said he had the same kind of trouble in Maiden Wood Circle before his home burned June 29.

He was asleep that morning when a smoke detector woke him up to a smoke-filled house. He saved four dogs but said he lost everything else.

"I'm just thankful I made it out," Huffman said.

Huffman has been living out of his car and staying with family and friends ever since. His homeowners insurance won't pay for the mobile home until an investigation is complete, he said.

He and the Simons think someone in their community has the key to putting the Maiden Wood Circle arsonist behind bars.

"Somebody must have seen something," Huffman said. "I hope they come forward before somebody ends up getting killed."