New York State Man Sentenced For Setting Building On Fire With Bag of Charcoal

A New York state man is facing serious jail time after pleading guilty to arson, criminal mischief, and criminal possession of the stolen property.

This all stems from an incident in 2020 where a man set fire to a building in a city area. Fortunately, due to the quick thinking by police and first responders, there was no loss of life or reported injuries. What is ironic about this is that the man is a former volunteer firefighter, himself.

CBS says the 45-year-old man set fire to a bag of charcoal in a residential building in the city of Troy, back in September 2020. Prosecutors say that there were two tenants in the building at the time the fire was set. Officials say he plead guilty to the charges. CBS says that the Schaghticoke man will now spend the next twelve years behind bars. Neither the Times Union nor CBS offered any word why he may have been motivated to set the blaze.

The Times Union says this is not his first run-in with the law and was also not the first time he was convicted of arson. Back in May 2014, an Albany County judge sentenced the same man to 4 to 12 years in prison for burglaries and a Sept. 30, 2013 arson fire at an unoccupied building in Guilderland.

Playing With Fire

You may remember this wild story from back in 2017? NY Upstate says that a Capitol Region man sparked a massive fire that ended up destroying or damaging twenty-one buildings in December 2017. One city mayor is calling it "the worst disaster he's ever seen." What makes the story even more tragic was that it was completely preventable. The Times Union says that a 51-year-old Cohoes man was apparently inspired by something he saw off of The History Channel's reality show Forged in Fire.

This wannabe amateur metalsmith decided that he was going to try to bend metal over a barrel fire in his backyard. Given the fact that the winds were gusting over 30 MPH that particular day, this was a very bad idea. The resulting fire quickly spread through the buildings that afternoon and was reportedly still burning over six hours later. NY upstate says the fire was so big it could even be seen on radar. CBS says that the massive fire was actually brought under control after three hours, but it started again an hour later.

CBS says that three city blocks in Cohoes were destroyed. That's half the downtown area of the city of just under 17,000.

The one bit of good news is that no one was killed. There were some reported minor injuries and one are firefighter had to be taken to the hospital with unspecified injuries. Over twenty people were displaced at the time.