Arson: The Next Big Thing to Worry About?

100 Investigators Gather, Seeking Clues to Vast Arson in Maryland

NY Times
By FELICITY BARRINGER and JAMES DAO
Published: December 8, 2004

INDIAN HEAD, Md., Dec. 7 - As more than 100 investigators arrived in southern Maryland to search for clues in what they called one of the most widespread single instances of arson in their experience, two of the volunteer firefighters who first responded to the blazes on Monday described houses bursting into flame in quick succession after their arrival.

Twenty-six houses in the muddy new subdivision of Hunters Brooke were involved and at least 10 were destroyed, W. Faron Taylor, a spokesman for the Maryland fire marshal's office, said.

At their peak, there were fires in 16 or 18 houses simultaneously, said Scott Creelman, a chief of the Potomac Heights Volunteer Fire Department who is also a fireman in the District of Columbia. He added: "It took more than one person. There's no way one person could have done all that."

Because the development is on a rare, environmentally sensitive wetland known as Magnolia Bog, there has been widespread speculation that the fires could have been the work of a radical environmental group called the Earth Liberation Front, copycats or a spinoff group. The organization said it could neither confirm nor deny involvement of its members in the fires.