Suspicious Hiseville fire under investigation

By BURTON SPEAKMAN
Glasgow Daily Times

HISEVILLE July 02, 2009 01:07 pm

— Another suspicious house fire occurred Wednesday in the Hiseville area.
The Barren County Sheriff’s Office responded to a house on fire northeast of Glasgow on Center Road (Ky. 314) at around 4:40 p.m.
This is the third suspicious fire that has occurred recently within the Hiseville area, said Sheriff’s Chris Eaton.
It’s unclear at this time if all the Hiseville fires were set by one person or if there have been copycats, he said.
At this point, the sheriff’s office is going to investigate the fires as though they area related until receiving other information, Eaton said.
Units from the Hiseville, Cave City and North Metcalfe volunteer fire departments responded, where they were able to completely maintain and extinguish the fire. The fire is thought to be arson. The State Fire Marshall began investigating the scene on Thursday morning, according to a sheriff’s office report. The home was vacant and had no electricity at the time of the fire.
The county also had a barn fire recently that appeared to be arson, Eaton said.
“We’ve already gotten a few calls about that fire,” he said.
There have been a number of fires in the area that were ruled to have been intentionally set, Eaton said.
“It started last winter with events in the city,” he said.
It is not known if the fires within the city and county are related. Eaton said he also was not sure how close the suspected arson fires in Hiseville were to a string of fires that have been determined to have been intentionally set in Metcalfe County.
The sheriff’s office is currently working to get a couple of deputies through training so the office can start an arson unit, he said.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I’ve been sheriff,” Eaton said.
An arson unit would make things easier on the area’s volunteer fire departments, he said.
“These guys are volunteers. They all have public jobs. They can’t be staying at a fire 24 hours a day (to secure the scene),” Eaton said. “The fire marshal’s office and Kentucky State Police do a great job, but they’re so short-staffed it sometimes takes them two or three days to get to town.”
A wait that long can lead to potential crime scenes not being secure, he said.
The arson unit for the sheriff’s office would be able to respond whenever needed, Eaton said.
Anyone with information about this or any other Barren County arson is urged to contact the Barren County Sheriff’s Office at 651-2771 or the Anonymous Tip-Line at 646-8771. There is a $500 reward being offered for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons involved in the Center Road fire.

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