Police officers Friday arrested a transient man suspected of recklessly starting the fire that damaged a duplex in the Hough neighborhood earlier that day.
The fire was reported around 2:30 a.m. at 1013 W. 24th St. The Vancouver Fire Department said firefighters arrived to find flames coming through a single-story duplex’s front window.
No one was hurt, and no one was inside at the time.
According to a police probable cause declaration filed in Clark County Superior Court, a neighbor called 911 to report the fire, and said she saw a man on a bike leaving the property.
Officers responded to the area and located a man on a bike — identified as Gary Cothren, 42 — nearby.
The officers read him his Miranda rights and he agreed to speak, the court records said.
According to the probable cause declaration, Cothren told the officers he was inside the house and sleeping in a bedroom closet prior to the fire.
He said he fired up a camp stove’s fuel canister and set it on a couch cushion beneath his feet.
Cothren said he woke to find his sleeping bag and the walls of the closet had caught fire, according to court records.
He said he tried to put it out, but it spread to the rest of the house and he fled.
According to a police probable cause declaration, the fire did significant damage, rendering the building uninhabitable. Investigators with the Vancouver Fire Marshal’s Office found the fire originated in the closet where Cothren said he slept.
Cothren was arrested on suspicion of first-degree reckless burning, and is being held on $40,000.
His arraignment, where he may be formally charged, is set for Friday.
