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Highlands Today

Man Charged With Setting 2 Arson Fires

Jason Brandon Wagner, 27

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By Joe  Seelig | Highlands Today

Published: May 8, 2008

Updated: 05/08/2008 03:30 pm

SEBRING — Investigators with the State Fire Marshal's Office arrested a Sebring man Thursday, charging him with lighting two fires in downtown Sebring in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Jason Brandon Wagner, 27, of 265 Pomegranate Ave., Lot 10, Sebring, was charged with two counts each of arson and trespassing.

State Fire Marshal Lt. Brandon Ball said late Thursday that his office was "scrutinizing 13 arson fires in that general vicinity since 2006," to see if they can trace Wagner's movements.

Ball said Wagner has appeared on the agency's radar before.

"We first encountered him in Apopka," he said. "He was listed as an occupant in a shed fire in Apopka."
Fire Marshal's Office Investigator Jeffrey Batz was called in at about 3:40 a.m. Thursday to investigate the "fully involved" fire at a detached garage, located at 511 Pomegranate Ave.

Sebring Fire Chief Brad Batz said another arson fire had destroyed the main house about a month ago, and so he called the fire marshal's office.
Jeffrey Batz was told by Sebring Police Officer Joe Stump that a Jason Wagner had called 911.

Wagner told Jeffrey Batz that he was walking around nearby warehouses "to see if they were still secure since his stuff was locked up inside," Batz wrote. "Wagner continued, saying that he had to urinate and walked behind the shed located at 511 Pomegranate Ave., and relieved himself."

Batz added that Wagner told him that he then threw his cigarette down and walked away, returning when he smelled smoke "to see what he did." That's reportedly when he called 911.

As many as 13 firefighters, five on-duty and eight off-duty personnel, responded to the fire when a second alarm was called in at a vacant trailer park at 340 N. Ridgewood Drive, Brad Batz said.

At first, Wagner told Jeffrey Batz that he didn't do it. But when he traced the path he had taken, with the fire marshal, and walked past both fires, Batz asked him if that was just a coincidence.

"Wagner spontaneously uttered that he 'lit that fire, too,'" Batz reported. "I asked him what happened and he said he threw another cigarette down at the trailer and walked away to go home."

When asked, did you start these fires, Wagner replied, "Yes I did," the report stated, at which point Wagner was arrested.

Both structures were destroyed. Batz said that his firefighters were able to get a lot of water in a hurry on an orthopedic shoe factory that bordered the Pomegranate Avenue fire, and were able to protect the building.

Chief Batz said the second fire happened at a vacated trailer park, where it was fortunate all of the occupants were moved out about a month ago.

Anyone with any information about this or any other arson type fires is asked to call 863-679-4180, Ball said, or call the Florida Advisory Committee on Arson Prevention at 1-877-NO ARSON (622-7766).

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