MOUNTAIN PINE, AR -
A now unrecognizable vacant house is the center of the latest arson investigation in the small Garland County community of Mountain Pine."I'm scared, honestly," said Mountain Pine firefighter Kevin Green. "We had a lot of fires back on 2005, 2006, 2007 and it goes through someone's mind - well, is it starting again?"
Saturday morning's suspicious fire brings the total number of unexplained burned structures to 14 in the close-knit town, including the September 24th fire that killed Tyler French and Ricky Clinton, last year.
"Who's gonna be next?" asked Terry Clinton, Ricky Clinton's daughter-in-law.
Clinton and her family are still trying to heal from her father-in-law's death.
"It's hard. It's scary to live here," she said.
"We can't bring back the people and we can't erase the memories," said Mountain Pine Fire Chief Lester O'Dell. "Anytime that I'm thinking of fires or anything, I think of that one."
Of all the houses that have burned to the ground in the small town, Chief O'Dell says there's only one pattern: the fire always starts in the back corner of the house.
Whether this weekend's fire is an arson is still under investigation, as are at least ten other vacant house fires in the city.
"We don't know how they're starting, if someone's starting them," said Green. "With arson, you pretty much have to catch them lighting the fire. You have to see them starting it."
"They're smart," said Chielf O'Dell. "They know how to get away with it."
"I wish that they would catch who did this," said Clinton. "Make it end."
Firefighters say all fourteen of these vacant house fires happened over the last seven years. No arrests have ever been made.
