Third fire in five days at West Palm Beach condominium complex

PBSO is taking over the investigation

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Photographer: Ashleigh Walters, WPTV
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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A fire early Wednesday around 2 a.m. marks the third suspected attack in the last five days at a West Palm Beach condominium complex.

Photographer: WPTV
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

arson_20120425075909_JPG


Photographer: Ashleigh Walters, WPTV
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Posted: 04/25/2012

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A fire early Wednesday around 2 a.m. marks the third "suspicious" incident in the last five days at a West Palm Beach condominium complex.

Residents of the complex said they fear one of their neighbors may have been a target of some kind and a sign has been placed on the front door of the complex offering a reward for information leading to someone responsible for "arson."

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office is looking into how and why these fires have broken out at 5352 Bosque Lane.

A separate fire sparked just before midnight on Monday, said Don DeLucia of Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.

"Someone set the entire building ablaze, and destroyed it." said Alan Meltzer, president of the condo association at the complex. 

He and other neighbors said this charred building has been home to a number of other 'suspicious' incidents before Monday night.

Police reports show that a vehicle owned by one of the tenants was set on fire Saturday and vandalized in early March.

Saturday, Monday and Wednesday's fires, neighbors said, could be the latest in a string of targeted attacks. 

"We're concerned about that but people here are pretty down to earth and they know it wasn't about them," said Meltzer.

The tenant in the unit that caught fire during Monday's incident is not being identified.

Authorities said he was home at the time the fire started and suffered cuts and bruises to his legs after he was forced to escape from a second floor window.

"He felt he couldn't go out the front door because there was fire at the front and back end of the house so he was in that sense trapped," said Jim Gribble, of Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.

The sheriff's office is now working in conjunction with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.

Neither agency will say if this is an arson investigation, but they are calling Wednesday morning's fire "suspicious."

There were three occupied units in the four unit building. All tenants made it out and are staying elsewhere as this investigation continues.

Ashleigh Walters of WPTV.com contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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