TOKYO, June 26 (Kyodo) -- Police arrested a 27-year-old firefighter on suspicion of setting a warehouse in Hino, Tokyo, on fire early Saturday, the police said.
The police suspect that Hiroshi Sasaki, a member of the Hino firefighting team, is also responsible for about 50 other arson cases that have broken out in the area since last October.
Sasaki said he set fire to the warehouse because he felt ''irritated,'' according to the police. He also confessed to 20 other arson cases.
The Saturday morning fire burned down the 110-square-meter warehouse.
Sasaki was spotted by police officers investigating the case when he set a corrugated carton on fire with a cigarette lighter in the warehouse.
Police believe Sasaki must have started fires at warehouses and trash at night and then worked as a firefighter to extinguish them.
Sasaki joined the Hino fighterfighting team around 1996. In his website, he boasted his firefighting team has been the fastest in the city in the time taken from the detection of fires to arrival at the scene.
