Fire bug suspected in Rensselaer County

MELROSE - Is there a fire bug on the loose?

That's what many in a rural part of Rensselaer County are wondering following another suspicious fire.

The list keeps growing. Following the latest fire Friday morning in Melrose, they've now seen more than 10 suspicious fires in the last six months.

The wooden frames of the house that burned Friday are charred and black. Firefighters say the fire started in the back of the house and it's already being labeled suspicious.

That's got Jim Laboissiere of Melrose on alert.

"The rumor is that there's a fire bug up here," Laboissiere said.

But unfortunately suspicious fires are nothing new in this neck of the woods of Rensselaer County.

"There have been several fires where we've had the same thing going on, vacant structures, houses under construction," Melrose Assistant Fire Chief Roger Scofield reported.

Scofield says in each case the fire is set from the outside, always happening late at night or early in the morning.

He points out a trailer fire on Sliter Road they were called to, along with a house just down the street on Pinewoods Road. But it doesn't end there. There was also a house on Melrose Valley Falls Road and he's quick to throw in the Thompson Mill Fire in Valley Falls. All of them he says are being looked at as arson.

"If we can help it, honestly, I'd like to see it come to an end at this point, because every time we roll out of here to go on one of these, I worry about all the people on the trucks, the residents and their families," Scofield said.

He's not alone. Just a few hundred yards from this most recent fire, Laboissiere feels the same way.

"Well it's getting closer. It's pretty brazen to be that close to Route 40. It's not as if it's a back dirt road. So it is nerve-racking," Laboissiere said.

The state Office of Fire Prevention and Control, the Rensselaer County Sheriff's Department, along with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms are all investigating this recent string of suspicious fires.