Jan. 17--A Hamburg area firefighter who admitted two months ago that he set a 2008 Berks County house fire was charged Thursday with arson, police said.
Kellen D. Klee, 23, of 265 Schappell Road, Windsor Township, told a Fairfax County, Virginia, official in November that he started the fire, according to the police arrest affidavit. He made the admission as he applied for a firefighting job, the affidavit says.
Klee, a Virginville volunteer firefighter, was arraigned Thursday before District Judge Kim L. Bagenstose on charges of arson and related offenses. He was released on $25,000 bail.
The comment that Klee allegedly made in Fairfax County was relayed Nov. 28, 2012, to state police at Reading, who had never determined what caused the 4 a.m. July 22, 2008, fire at 279 Schappell Road, the affidavit says.
Trooper Michael J. Yeity investigated.
State police asked Klee to answer questions about the Fairfax County interview, and on Dec. 20, Klee provided a written statement confessing that he took fuel from his garage, splashed it on his neighbor's garage and ignited it with a cigarette lighter, the affidavit says.
Klee, who was an emergency medical technician and new Virginville firefighter in 2008, was the first to report the blaze to the 911 center and helped his fellow firefighters put it out, the affidavit says.
The fire destroyed the roof of the single-story house and the home's garage. Damage was estimated at $150,000. Unoccupied at the time of the fire, the house was owned by Bank of New York, with an address in Plano, Texas.
-- Frank Warner
Copyright 2013 - The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
