Three Kidder volunteer firefighters suspected in arsons
By KEVIN PENTN
The Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2006 The Morning Call, Inc.
Tired of waiting for fire calls that never seemed to come, John Kehler and two fellow firefighters looked at each other one night at their firehouse in northern Carbon County and decided to shake things up, police said.
The three left Kidder Township Volunteer Fire Company on May 21 with gasoline, rags and plastic containers, looking to start a brush fire, police said.
They failed that night, but managed to torch two vacant buildings in the township in the next three weeks, communicating with each other by coded conversations over cell phones, police said.
Kehler, of White Haven, a lieutenant in the company, was arraigned Tuesday on arson-related charges before Weatherly District Judge Joseph Homanko, who sent him to Carbon County Prison under $100,000 cash bail.
His two alleged co-conspirators, whom police have identified only by their initials, L.T. and R.K., are expected to turn themselves in at Homanko’s office today.
“They said they were simply looking for some calls,” said Trooper David Klitsch of the state police Fire Marshal Unit. “They told us they didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
According to an arrest affidavit filed by Klitsch and Kidder police officer Matthew Kuzma:
In the failed efforts to start the brush fires, R.K. lit a plastic container filled with a gasoline and oil mix, but the fire burned itself out. He tried a second time with Kehler using a road flare, but again failed.
Two days later, R.K. dropped off Kehler near an abandoned two-story wooden house on Route 940, two miles from the Turnpike, where he put a lit container filled with flammable fluids by the home’s rear porch.
The two firefighters returned to their fire hall and were among the first to respond to the fire, which destroyed the structure despite the efforts of several fire companies.
On June 7, while at the firehouse after 11 p.m., Kehler filled two containers with a mix of oil and gasoline and used red shop rags from the station as wicks. While R.K. went off to wait for the fire alarm, L.T. drove Kehler to a vacant three-story building on Route 940 commonly known as the Bear Necessities building.
After Kehler set the building ablaze, he and L.T. drove to a truck stop on Route 534, where L.T. called in the fire to the Carbon County 911 center. The three firefighters responded to the fire.
Police considered both fires to be suspicious and asked the firefighters about their involvement. When questioned, Kehler confessed, Klitsch said.
Kehler was charged with arson/endangering persons, possessing explosives or incendiary materials or devices, conspiracy, arson/endangering property, reckless burning or exploding, risking a catastrophe, criminal mischief, loitering and prowling.
Arsonists who are firefighters tend to be young, eager males who work for small companies that rarely fight large fires, said state Fire Commissioner Edward Mann, who was on a task force that studied the issue a couple of years ago.
Though arsonists generally say they didn’t intend to harm anyone, Mann said, they don’t take into account the dangers to which they expose their fellow firefighters.
Because local fire companies have limited financial resources, Mann said, the task force did not recommend that all firefighters submit to a background check. Instead, it suggested all applicants sign a letter stating they’ve never been convicted of any crime related to arson.
“If they’ve lied, the fire companies can show that the effort was made,” Mann said. “From the public relations point of view, that at least gives the department some cover.”
Today’s additional arrests would raise to five the number of firefighters arrested by state troopers on arson-related charges in Pennsylvania this year, said Cpl. John Lowson of the Fire Marshal Unit. The two other arrests occurred in Schuylkill County in March, when two teenage volunteers were charged with starting six fires over nine days.
Corey Stambaugh, 18, of Ashland, and John Cheeseman, 19, of Gordon, allegedly started fires in vacant homes, barns and in brush. They responded to all of them, even when their fire companies had not been summoned or had been called off, police said.
Kidder Fire Chief David Troell, who said he counted on Kehler and his two alleged co-conspirators as half of the six firefighters who regularly were on call, said the arrests shocked him. The fire company has 12 members.
“None of us saw this coming,” said Troell, who said background checks on the three did not raise cause for concern. “It would have never dawned on me that they would do these things.”
Fires are rare in Kidder, a heavily wooded township of 1,296 people that has an average of 18 residents per square mile, according to U.S. Census statistics. The company responds to an average of 125 calls a year, most of which are motor vehicle accidents on Interstate 80 or automatic fire alarms that go off, Troell said.
“These guys have ripped the heart out of my chest,” said Troell. “Firefighting is all about trust. From now on, we ain’t going to trust people like we used to.”