PALM BAY, Fla. – A 5-acre brush fire which took helicopters dropping water to put out and closed businesses and a major road was set intentionally, police now say.
“Y’all gonna burn.”
That’s what Palm Bay police said Marc Hoover said Tuesday to some other people at a homeless camp off Babcock Street between the AutoZone and the Habitat for Humanity store.
“It was a lot of fire,” Assistant Fire Chief John Ringleb said. “It was pretty thick back in those woods.”
After police said Hoover used a lighter to start the fire, chief Ringleb told your Palm Bay Community Correspondent James Sparvero that fortunately, the wind didn’t blow the fire east in the direction of hundreds of apartments and houses.
“Why would he do something like that?” resident Alex Belal asked.
When he faced a judge at the county jail, Hoover didn’t explain, himself, what he was thinking, but when police interviewed him, they said Hoover said he was sorry for starting the fire and burning other people’s things.
“It’s really, really difficult because we all still have a job to do outside of managing these large brush fires,” Ringleb said. “We still have to meet the needs of the community and respond to all the other emergency calls.”
Belal said arsonists should be put in prison for life.
The judge told Hoover he faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted on his arson charges.