‘Where are they going to light next?’
There have been 30 suspicious fires since September in rural areas near Guelph
GUELPH — Marlene Hawkins keeps a pad of paper and a pen handy whenever she goes out for a drive. The 73-year-old woman says she wants to be ready to copy down the description of any suspicious vehicle she comes across, or anyone who looks like they might be up to no good.
This is what 11 months of ongoing suspicious fires does to a community. It brings a heightened level of anxiety to everyday life for those living in rural areas north and east of Guelph. To date, there have been 30 suspicious fires since last September that Wellington County OPP are investigating as being connected.
So far no one has been injured, but rural homeowners near Rockwood believe it’s only a matter of time before the suspected fire bug ends up killing someone. Alex Lush lives on Third Line, not far from Hawkins. Looking out over rows of corn from his farm equipment business, he can see the space where an abandoned home once stood.
It burned down last October, one of the first of many abandoned buildings in the area to go up in flames.
“To me, it’s way beyond scary. This has gotten serious,” he said. “Everyone is very concerned and thinking, ‘where are they going to light next?’”
In his store, locals, and even people visiting from out of town, talk about the unsolved fires like they talk about the weather.
He said it would be very stressful if he wasn’t able to work and keep busy. “It keeps our minds off it.” But for those who are retired or not keeping busy, he doesn’t know how they’re managing to deal with this anxiety.
Shauna Ryckman, Lush’s daughter, said the rural community may be spread out, but it’s also very tight-knit. When community members hear fire trucks screaming up their road,
they hope and pray the fire isn’t at their family or friend’s home.
“(The community) is still small enough that, chances are, it’s either somebody related to you or someone that you know.”
She said she knows all the fires have been at abandoned homes and up until now, no one has been hurt. But that could change.
“A frequent comment from community people is, ‘What’s going to happen when he runs out of vacant buildings? What’s going to be next?”
Another popular line of conversation: “Let’s get this guy. We’ve gotta put an end to this.”
But outside of staying vigilant, taking down license plates of suspicious cars parked on the road, Ryckman said she is at a loss for what to do.
Lush said there wasn’t much the community could do, other than wait on police to solve the case and bring someone in on arson charges.
“If the person or persons involved in setting them are not apprehended, they will not stop. I’m convinced of that.” ‘We need to catch these guys’ Chris White, the mayor of Guelph Eramosa Township, said these fires have been the talk of the community.
Many of these fires have been on properties within the township and the locals he comes across are growing increasingly concerned.
“The bottom line is we need to catch these guys,” he said, adding the municipality has been offering whatever support they can to investigators.
“There’s always a fear that someone might get injured,” he said. “Considering the volume and consistency, the odds of something horrible happening go up.”
Wellington County OPP are looking into each of these fires, but have revealed little about the scope of their investigation, or how widespread these fires actually are. For weeks the Mercury Tribune has been requesting to speak with investigators about these fires, but no interviews have been granted.
OPP Const. Joshua Cunningham spoke on behalf of investigators, emphasizing the fires are a major concern for police. He said investigators are working with the office of the Ontario Fire Marshal and while these fires may seem like they’re all connected, that’s not yet something police can confirm.
“What makes them suspicious is that they’re buildings that have either been abandoned or desolate, don’t have utilities and are somewhat remote,” he said.
Police are taking a proactive approach and “keeping an eye on things,” stopping vehicles in certain remote areas, identifying drivers and looking for any type of suspicious activity.
“There’s a hesitation to use the word arsonist because to be an arsonist there has to be intent,” he said. Police aren’t yet in a position to be able to use this term.
Detective Michael Skoularicos with the Halton Regional Police Service has been a lead investigator into the suspicious fires seen in Halton Region. Since January, there have been six fires that police see as possibly connected to the ongoing suspicious fires occurring in Wellington County.
“To make the link between one (fire) and another is extremely difficult because you have to have forensic evidence,” he said. “We may get lucky and be able to identify somebody in the more recent fires over time, but how do you link them back to the ones before? That’s going to be the difficulty.”
If there is someone behind these fires, they likely don’t care about borders or jurisdictions, Skoularicos said. Looking at a map, the locations of these fires are scattered, spread across Halton Region and Wellington County boundary lines. This is why the departments are sharing information and working together. He said police are asking anyone who comes across a vehicle parked on back roads early in the morning to report it.
“We’re assuming that, if these are linked, there’s somebody in a vehicle, and that vehicle is going to be key for us.”
Assuming the fires are linked, Skoularicos said the individual (s) seem to be going out of their way to make sure no one gets hurt.
“It’s almost as though this person or persons might be just trying to damage places where they’re not worried that anybody’s going to get hurt,” he said. “Every single one of these, there was an extremely unlikely possibility that anything near by could catch fire.”
Guelph Fire Chief John Osborne said even if these buildings are abandoned, firefighters still approach all structure fires as if there are people inside. Responding to these suspicious fires puts firefighters at risk.
Drivers are also put at risk when they’re forced to pull over on dirt roads for emergency service vehicles to pass. The shoulders are soft and sooner or later, someone could end up off the road.
Osborne said Guelph Fire has reached out to the Ministry of Transportation and the Grand River Conservation Authority to have them take down their abandoned buildings in light of these ongoing fires.
Within the City of Guelph, there are a large number of abandoned and vacant structures, but the fire chief said he’s not concerned with them. He said homeowners have been advised to secure the properties and keep people out.
Last month, a fire at an empty pool house in Rockwood brought a new level of concern to these fires. OPP say they don’t consider this fire connected with the others, but that doesn’t bring comfort to nearby residents. Alex Lush said many residents are convinced it’s just a matter of time before these fires end up in an urban setting.
“I think everyone needs to be concerned.”