Sheriff: 5 fires in Grubbs ‘arson’
Posted on Saturday, October 18, 2008
GRUBBS — Someone is setting fires in Grubbs, disrupting the normally quiet life in the rice-producing area in eastern Jackson County, Sheriff David Lucas said Friday. Five fires were set within two hours of one another Wednesday morning, Lucas said. Farm equipment, sheds, a house, a community center and trucks were targeted.
“It’s definitely arson,” the sheriff said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
Investigators spent much of Friday inspecting the remains of a fire at the community center that once housed Grubbs High School.
“We’re taking samples and processing the scene,” he said.
He didn’t release details about where the fire began or how it was set.
“We’re looking for the accelerants used in this,” he said.
The fires began at 1: 30 a. m. Wednesday, when blazes destroyed two semitrailers left in a Grubbs parking lot. Shortly afterward, a house on Gum Street, about two blocks east of the parking lot, burned, Lucas said.
Investigators found inside the home a butane tank, which may have been used to ignite the fire, Lucas said. Neighbors said they heard an explosion and then saw someone driving away rapidly.
At 3: 20 a. m. Wednesday, police discovered a raging fire in a garage on Craighead County Road 47. Inside, a truck, a tractor and a rice buggy were damaged, said owner Kenneth Clark, a Grubbs rice farmer.
Clark said he received a telephone call from police at 3: 30 a. m. Wednesday about his equipment.
“We had a lot of harvesting equipment there,” he said. “The fire destroyed a truck and tractor.”
Lucas later discovered the fire at the former Grubbs High School. No one was hurt in any of the fires, he said.
“We’re looking at anywhere from $ 250, 000 to $ 500, 000 in damages,” Lucas said. “We have five investigators working on this. We’ve developed some po- tential leads.”
Clark said he’d never seen anything like the fires in his 59 years in town.
“The person who did this has to be mentally disturbed,” he said. “They didn’t steal anything. They’re just setting things on fire.”
Clark said he lost about $ 70, 000 in the fire at his garage, including about 50 bushels of rice stored in the rice buggy.
“It causes you to wake up early in the morning to see if anything is burning. It puts fear in us,” he said.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
