10 Volunteer Firefighters in North Carolina Charged With Setting Fires

Over the course of two years, authorities said, a group of 10 people conspired to set fires to abandoned buildings and wooded areas in a rural North Carolina county. But what was more unusual, officials said, is what the people had in common: They were volunteer firefighters.

The arrest of the 10 firefighters in Robeson County came Tuesday amid a yearlong investigation into more than a dozen fires that were deliberately set in the southern part of the county, Sheriff Kenneth Sealey said in a statement.

The people accused range in age from 17 to 42 and volunteered at the Orrum Township Fire Department and the Fairmont Rural Fire Department. Combined, the accused face about 90 arson-related charges. Among the 10 defendants are a former police officer and a Department of Corrections employee.

No one was hurt in any of the fires the 10 people are accused of starting, Maj. Anthony Thompson of the Robeson County Sheriff’s Department said in an interview Wednesday.

He declined to discuss details of the investigation, including possible motive, because it is continuing and more arrests are possible.

“I’m not aware of anything happening like that in my 30 years being here,” Thompson said. “This is a first.”

Most of the fires occurred near Fairmont, he said, a small town about 100 miles southwest of Raleigh and with a population of about 2,600.

Steve Britt, fire chief of the Orrum Township Fire Department, said he was surprised to learn that three of his volunteers were among those arrested. He said he had not been aware of the investigation until the arrests.

Britt said he had heard stories of firefighters setting fires, but added that in his 32 years with his department — which serves an area of about 2,500 people — it had never happened there. With the arrest of three of its firefighters, his department, based in a small town about 7 miles east of Fairmont, now has 24 volunteers.

He said the three firefighters in his department who had been arrested “were really involved” in activities. One had seemed eager to participate in trainings, he said, and all three consistently showed up to meetings. Two of them had started in January, he added.

Britt said he did not think that some of those accused committed the crimes they are charged with, but added that the department will go forward with its duties.

“You just have to move on and hope it all works out the best for them,” Britt said.