By Joe Pinchot
PINE TOWNSHIP — A parishioner of a Pine Township church told his pastor and police that he started a fire that destroyed a house on the church property, state police said.
Philip J. McCamey, 38, of Slippery Rock Township, Butler County, was arrested Tuesday at home on charges of arson and criminal mischief, police said.
The fire started at 7:57 a.m. Sunday in the home directly behind Church of the Epiphany Episcopal Church, 870 Liberty St. Ext., police said. Fire consumed about 75 percent of the exterior structure, and police estimated the loss at about $100,000.
State police called the building the church parsonage, but Pine Township Volunteer Fire Chief Christopher Holmes said no one lived there.
“It was a ranch house that was used for storage,” Holmes said.
McCamey was angry the pastor was not living in the house, Trooper Brian Crouch, a fire marshal, told the Associated Press.
Many books were stored in the house, and the church planned to sell them as a fundraiser, Crouch told the Associated Press.
State police determined the fire has been intentionally set Monday, and received a statement the next day from the Rev. Geoffrey M. Wild that McCamey had admitted to him that he set the fire, police said.
McCamey told police Tuesday that the lighter he used to start the blaze was in a church storage room, where police retrieved it, police said.
McCamey was arraigned by District Judge D. Neil McEwen, Pine Township, and sent to Mercer County Jail for failing to post bond. His preliminary hearing was set for Wednesday.
A message left with the church was not returned.
Holmes said the blaze had a head start on firefighters.
“I was in there within three minutes and it was well involved,” he said.
Holmes said he was surprised to learn that the fire was intentionally set, and angered that someone would jeopardize lives of firefighters “for no reason.”
Firefighters from Grove City, Harrisville, Springfield Township and Mercer assisted.
