Police look into Cardale arson
REDSTONE TWP. – State police are investigating another case of arson at a mobile home in Cardale after the home was gutted by fire in late August. State police fire marshal Cpl. Russ Freed said he examined the home on Second Street early Tuesday and determined that the blaze was intentionally set. The home is owned by Fayette County Habitat for Humanity.
He said that the fire began when someone threw a lit glass bottle filled with an accelerant through a broken window at the burned mobile.
Freed said the fire burned inside the home but had burned out by the time volunteer firefighters arrived.
Additionally, Freed said that he discovered another Molotov cocktail outside a garage on the property.
He said the second incendiary device did not burst when it was thrown at the garage so it did not sustain any damage.
Freed said investigators are examining the second glass bottle for forensic evidence.
Doreen Bugai of Dunbar Township and Habitat for Humanity had placed the mobile home in the vacant lot during the summer with the intention of establishing a permanent residence for Bugai’s daughter, Damara Bugai, and her children.
However, the home was gutted by fire in late August.
Freed determined that the first fire also was intentionally set.
That fire came less than two weeks after neighbors complained to the Redstone Township supervisors that the mobile home placed on the property was more than 30 years old and in poor condition and just days before Damara Bugai was scheduled to move into the home.
Habitat for Humanity affiliate manager Jackie Shrum said that she followed all codes and regulations in proceeding with the project on East Street.
Shrum said the nonprofit organization received a variance from the Fayette County Office of Planning and Zoning allowing the mobile home to be two feet closer to the property line than called for in the regulations.
While she said that the mobile home had not been refurbished on the exterior, it would have been refinished after the interior work was completed.
Freed said while there has been rampant speculation by Cardale residents regarding who set the fire, no suspects have been named and the blaze remains under investigation by state police.