Former volunteer charged with arson

Fires caused more than $1 million in damages

According to court documents, Duncan, who is an ex-member of the Brunswick Volunteer Fire Company, confessed to the Frederick County Sheriff's Office to starting the fire by throwing a piece of lit newspaper into a hay pile.

"I live right across the street from [HC Summers], so I heard some crackling sounds and I got up and looked out the window and our feed mill was up in flames," Summers said.

"It's quite a shock. It completely burnt our feed mill, warehouse, and one thing that was saved was the office. Other than that, we lost a lot of warehouse space."

The fire at HC Summers destroyed a feed mill built in 1907. Estimated damage to the business was $750,000, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Duncan, who was unemployed at the time of his arrest, was still being detained at the Frederick County Adult Detention Center as of Wednesday afternoon. His bail has been set at $750,000, according to Cpl. Jennifer Bailey, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Office.

The 28-year-old suspect is also being charged in connection to a series of other fires started between September 1997 and Aug 5, when he allegedly set on fire debris on a Jefferson family's porch, causing about $275,000 in damage and causing the residents to sustain minor injuries.

He is being charged in connection to two other fires, and the Sheriff's Office alleges that he admitted to having started about a dozen smaller fires in trash bins and his vehicle.

He was arrested as the result of what the Sheriff's Office described as an "intense investigation" that included 40 interviews over the last three weeks.

One of the fires he is suspected of starting caused $6,000 in damage to his parents' Brunswick home on Sept. 3, 1997, after he allegedly threw a lit piece of paper into a trash can. The fourth fire caused only $100 in damage to a Jefferson farm Aug. 1 because a passerby was able to extinguish it before it spread, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Serial arson is rare, according to John Michael Agosti, a veteran arson expert at the Chicago-based fire investigations firm John Michael Agosti and Associates.

Though he said he has done work related to more than 1,800 fires and arsons, he has never encountered a single case of serial arson.

"It does not happen often. It's pretty rare," said Agosti, who was not speaking directly to the case involving Duncan. "Serial arsonists are few and far between. I don't have any experience with serial arson."

Court documents state that "at one point during the interview [with detectives], Duncan broke down and stated, ‘I like fire,'" but Agosti said arsonists usually strike as a result of other, deeper reasons, such as revenge, financial benefit, or as a result of psychological or mental problems.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Sept. 9.