Firefighter Charged With 27 Felony Arson Counts

A LACKAWANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER was arrested Friday and charged with setting a series of fires that caused more than $3.5 million in losses.

The Lackawanna County District Attorney Andy Jarbola said in a news conference that Benjamin Christensen, 25, of 171 Belmont St., Carbondale, allegedly started the fires out of boredom and, sometimes, anger. Oftentimes he would set a fire and then go back home and wait for his VFD to dispatch the call when he would put on his turnout gear and return to the scene to help fight the fire.

WNEP Ch.16 took this picture of Christensen
working crowd control at one of the major
fires that he has admitted setting.

Christensen was charged with 27 felony counts of arson and related offenses and is being held in the county jail in lieu of $500,000 bail. If he is convicted he could be sentenced for life imprisonment.

A multi-county task force of police detectives along with state police and fire marshals worked the case for 14 months.

The Scranton Times-Tribune reports:

A major development came April 15, after Carbondale Police Detective Aaron Haley interviewed Mr. Christensen for an unrelated charge stemming from the alleged statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. Police charged Mr. Christensen with unlawful contact with a minor, indecent assault and statutory sexual assault.

It was during this interview that Detective Haley and state troopers uncovered Mr. Christensen’s role in starting these fires, police said.

A state police affidavit says that Mr. Christensen talked about his involvement in the fires, leading the detective to obtain a videotaped verbal confession from Mr. Christensen.

This fire attributed to Christensen
destroyed seven businesses.