Firebug�s spree rattles, angers neighbourhood

A firebug left a smouldering trail of destruction as four vehicles were torched in four east London driveways, dangerously close to homes as their owners slept. The separate blazes in the Whitney St. and Edgeworth Ave. area broke out about 3:30 a.m. Sunday, rattling area residents. Police had no suspects, but said the string of fires doesn’t appear connected to a rash of fires three weeks ago that damaged two massage parlours and a strip club connected to the Hells Angels. “It’s crazy,” said the owner of one torched vehicle on Whitney St., who declined to give her name. Whoever set the fires tried to start her van on fire, but succeeded in only burning a hole in a seat. “It didn’t go up in flames like the rest,” she said. A car next door was gutted. The owner said he didn’t want the fire publicized. “It was vandalism,” he said. Around the corner on Edgeworth Ave., a pickup truck was burned out in a driveway, the door left open and headlights still on. Several doors down, on the opposite side of the street, a destroyed car sat in a driveway. “They were all in close proximity,” said London police Const. Ken Steeves. Steeves said there doesn’t appear to be a link between Sunday’s mayhem and January’s fires. Those broke out during a week of dramatics that also brought shootings. “There doesn’t seem to be (a connection) at this point,” Steeves said. The department’s criminal investigation division is heading the probe now and police are searching for an arsonist.