Officials: Woman set 20-home Hiram fire

Resident lost her house in divorce, ignited mattresses.

A woman charged with 14 counts of first-degree arson had just lost her house in a divorce when she started a fire that destroyed or damaged a total of 20 homes in Paulding County, authorities said.

According to the state insurance and safety fire commissioner’s office, Adrienne Satterly was in the process of leaving her home when she set a pile of mattresses on fire in the dining room.

Satterly left the house with her two cats and walked to a Walmart before calling 911 about 3:25 a.m. Sunday, office spokesman Glenn Allen told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

By the time authorities arrived, the fire had spread to 19 other homes in the Greystone subdivision in Hiram.

The blaze destroyed four of them, significantly damaged two more and left 14 others with varying degrees of heat and smoke damage.

The damage is estimated to surpass $1 million, officials said.

Everyone got out of their homes safely, but one man suffered a minor ankle injury, authorities said.

A cat and two dogs from two neighboring homes died.

That prompted officials to also charge Satterly with three counts of aggravated animal cruelty, according to Allen.

Before she was formally charged with arson and animal cruelty, Satterly was arrested on unrelated public drunkenness charges.

She is being held in the Paulding County Jail without bail.

“This suspect committed a heinous act that threatened the lives of her neighbors and our first responders,” deputy commissioner Jay Florence said.