Abandoned Home Burned, Arson Suspected

Early Sunday morning the Sherwood Shores Volunteer Fire Department received a call from a Sherwood Shores resident on Oak Trail Road. An abandoned house was burning.
Cliff Hamilton, the neighbor who placed the call, said that the light reflecting into his bedroom awaked him and when he looked out his window, he saw flames and called 911.

The first units on scene reported that the house was already “well involved.” This prompted a mutual aid call to Whitesboro and Collinsville Fire Departments at 3:10 a.m. Gordonville had already been called. Units responded and were able to extinguish the blaze, however the house was a total loose with only a small bit of the front remaining, said Ron Blackwell, Sherwood Shores Fire Chief.

The residence was an U.S. Attorney General seizure that was in foreclosure. The abandoned house had no electricity or propane to the house and it appears that the fire burned very hot and rapidly, which would suggest that an accelerant feed the fire, Blackwell said.

Fire Officials contacted the State Fire Marshalls office and expect them to begin investigate in the next few days, Blackwell said. Officials would not comment publicly on the cause of the fire, but they did speculate that this was another incident in the recent series of arsons that have been occurring in Sherwood Shores.

Limited information was available about the pending investigation, however, if the cause is arson it would be the fifth incident in the past year. There is nothing that conclusively ties the cases together although it appears that their may be some connection. Officials are still investigating all the cases and have not made any arrest, although, they do have several suspects, Blackwell said.

The recent surge in arson is beginning to make local residents uneasy. “This kind of thing has been happening a lot around here. It’s really getting kind of scary.”