‘Bored’ firefighter faces arson charges after lighting two homes on fire, cops say

A Pennsylvania volunteer firefighter set two homes ablaze in December while people were still inside — and he did it because he was “bored,” police said, according to KDKA.

Now 19-year-old Ryan Laubham faces charges of arson, causing or risking a catastrophe, and criminal mischief, according to Patch.

Police said firefighters arrived at a Munhall, Pennsylvania, home at around 3 a.m. on Monday and found a woman trying to douse a fire that had started on her porch, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. She had been asleep when the smell of smoke awoke her, according to the paper.

She was able to get the fire under control, WTAE reported.

“Could have been much worse, absolutely. The fire was on its way to spreading,” Munhall Fire Chief Ed Pletsch said, according to the station. ”This is what we call balloon construction. There’s a void space in the walls all the way up. It’s very common construction around here, and was on its way up to the void space to the roof and would have spread across the roof eventually and taken the whole house.”

As police were responding to the fire, another person arrived on the scene and told officers someone had tried to light his porch on fire about a week prior but had not been successful, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Police reviewed security footage from neighbors and said they identified a man they later realized was Laubham fleeing the scene and entering the Munhall fire station, according to the Tribune-Review. They were also able to identify his house.

Police said Laubham initially denied being involved and told officers he had been at home playing video games, according to the Post-Gazette. When they brought up security footage of him walking around outside, he said he had gone out to see his girlfriend, according to the paper, before finally admitting to setting the fires.

Officers said he told them he did it because he was “bored,” and that he used paper towels to set the first fire and gasoline for the other, KDKA reported. He was taken to jail, where he later posted bond and was released, WPXI reported.

In July, 10 North Carolina firefighters were ensnared in an investigation in whether that had set “numerous” fires in abandoned homes and in wooded areas, the Charlotte Observer reported.