Troubling Series of Fires
In Randolph Area

It’s been a tough time for Randolph firefighters. This week’s Peth Road fire was the fifth structure fire that they have responded to in a little over a month.

Only one of those fires—a December 15 chimney fire that destroyed the Bedell residence on Farnsworth Brook Road in Braintree—has been ruled accidental.

Two fires have been officially ruled arson and remain under investigation: the January 15 fire that destroyed a Route 12 residence, and which police said was caused by "at least one incendiary device," and a December 21 fire that destroyed a large vacant building on the former Ethan Allen property in Randolph Village.

The cause of a December 19 fire at a vacant West Braintree residence was officially ruled undetermined, because the extensive firefighting needed to extinguish it obliterated any evidence of its cause, police said.

This week brought the destruction by fire of yet another vacant building, the small Peth Road home that burned early Tuesday morning.

Although he conceded that the Randolph-Braintree area has had a troubling series of fires, Randolph Village Fire Chief Jay Collette said Tuesday that he does not believe, at this point, that a serial arsonist is at work.

"Am I concerned?" he said. "Sure, it’s unnerving for everybody, us included. But I don’t believe they (the five fires) are linked—unless something else comes forward to make me change my mind."

The Herald was unable to reach, by press time yesterday, state police fire investigators for an update on pending investigations, and any comment on possible links between these fires.

28 Calls, 38 Days

It’s been an extraordinarily taxing month, in general, for Randolph’s volunteer firefighters, who have been toned out 28 times since December 15. Besides the structure fires, there have been traffic accidents, a carbon monoxide alarm, DHART helicopter landings, and sundry alarms. On Monday night, six hours before the Peth Road fire, the Village department responded to a vehicle fire on Braintree Hill.

That 10 p.m. fire, at the Andrew Allard home, destroyed a Jeep Cherokee. Collette said the fire started in the engine compartment, after the Jeep was started.