By Roger Amsden
The Union Leader
ALTON, N.H. — A 22-year veteran firefighter charged with four counts of arson waived a probable cause hearing on those charges in Laconia District Court yesterday.
The charges against Stark Liedtke, 43, of Alton, will now go to Belknap County Superior Court.
Police say Liedtke, a lieutenant with the Alton Fire Department, confessed to setting 11 fires over the last four years here and in New Durham.
He was arrested last month not far from the scene of a suspicious fire which had taken place in February on New Durham Road after police detected the smell of gasoline on his clothes while questioning him as he left the Hannaford’s supermarket parking lot.
Police found a large box of matches as well as a headlamp similar to that used by miners on Liedtke’s person and an accelerant sniffing dog brought to the area by John Southwell of the state Fire Marshal’s Office led investigators to two plastic bottles of gasoline in the woods. Liedtke’s vehicle was found not far away, parked behind a state Department of Transportation building.
Police said Liedtke confessed he had been trying to set the abandoned building, which had partially burned on Feb. 20, on fire and subsequently admitted to setting three other abandoned buildings on fire in Alton and three other buildings in New Durham as well as setting four forest fires in the Rte. 28 area since 2006.
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