VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. --
There could be a serial arsonist on the loose in Edgewater, WFTV was told Friday. Someone set fire to four different homes in the past 11 days.
All four fires were in the Seahorse Mobile Home Park on Ridgewood Avenue.
Fire investigators said all of the fires are suspicious. Firefighters had just finished putting a fire out in a trailer around 2:00am when they noticed smoke coming out of another trailer next door. That trailer was next to yet another one which burned two weeks ago, and 10 lots away from one that burned on Wednesday.
The first fire at the Seahorse Mobile Home Park didn't seem suspicious, investigators said. The second one raised some eyebrows, and then two in one night this week, put investigators on alert and residents on edge.
"She was watching TV and she heard this, ‘Boom, boom!’ Only thing I know maybe it was aerosol cans exploded in there. I don't know what it was," resident Gerald Tedder said.
Gerald Tedder lives just feet away from the home that burned Thursday. Like the others, it was empty, owned by snowbirds.
But the fire was big enough that Kedder said only the Edgewater Fire Department's five-minute response saved his home and others from burning down too.
"I'm just tickled that fire truck got here. I am," Kedder said.
"It's unusual to have this happen in the city of Edgewater. We're a small bedroom community. We don't really have a big fire problem, so it is unusual," said Jill Danigel, Edgewater Fire Department.
It's more unusual because it's the second time this year Edgewater has had to form an arson task force.
The first one came after two dozen brush fires were set in the south part of the city in January. A 15-year-old boy was charged in that case.
Investigators said Friday that case is on the table for discussion in this investigation, while adding that the recent mobile home fires appear to be a different situation.
No residents were hurt in any of these fires, though one firefighter did have a back injury. Investigators haven't indicated at all how they think these fires were set.
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