A volunteer firefighter in Bienville Parish charged over the weekend with trying to burn a mobile home is under suspicion for setting nearly two dozen other fires over the past month.
Most of the arson fires were small and no one was injured and no houses were burned, Bienville Sheriff John Ballance said. They occurred in the Ringgold and Jamestown areas.
Christopher L. Long, 20, of Ringgold, was arrested early Saturday and accused of setting an unoccupied mobile home on fire. That fire burned itself out before it caused significant damage, Ballance said.
Long became a volunteer firefighters for the southwestern part of the parish last month, Ballance said.
"He was responding to the fires. That was what led them to be suspicious of him," Ballance said.
Long was booked on one count of simple arson. He is under investigation for more than 20 other fires in the southwest part of the parish but has not been charged, Ballance said.
The rash of grass and woods fires began in mid-February. The last one was the mobile home fire on Friday night, Ballance said.
Republished with permission of KTBS-TV.
