Minnesota man allegedly tried to put Boy Scout cabin fire out with beer, now charged with arson
FREDENBERG, Minn. — A man has been charged with first-degree arson after allegedly lighting a cabin owned by the Boy Scouts of America on fire in September.
According to court documents, on Sept. 13, 2024 at approximately 6:52 p.m. deputies from the St. Louis County Sheriff's Office responded to a call at the 5000 block of Taft Road about a cabin fire.
Upon arrival, deputies say volunteer firefighters were working hard to extinguish the fire and noted to Deputy Twaddle that they smelled gas in the back northwest corner of the cabin.
St. Louis County Sheriff's Sergeant Labore contacted interim CEO for the Boy Scouts of America, Richard Avery, who said that no one was supposed to be at the cabin that day, and that the cabin is locked up and no longer in use, court documents say.
Later, around 8:52 p.m., Investigator Pikul was notified that the department had received a call about a lost hiker.
Deputies found the lost hiker approximately three and half miles from the cabin fire and say he was carrying a gas cannister. When asked about it, the man told law enforcement that he wanted to start a fire but had gotten lost, court documents say.
The court documents go on to say that on Sept. 30, Investigator Pikul met with the man again and this time he denied carrying a gas cannister. Eventually, the man later admitted to having the gas cannister but said he wasn't going to start a fire with it.
The man then told Pikul he "accidentally did something bad, and he really tried to put it out," court documents say.
The man later confessed that he broke through a plexiglass window in the back of the cabin with a little hatchet and dumped gasoline inside the cabin, court documents say. Then, he said he panicked when it [the cabin] "went up" [in flames] and he tried to dump a beer on it to put it out.
According to the man, he had two gallon cans of gasoline in his truck but only poured about a cup's worth of gasoline in the window of the cabin.
Court documents say that the man could not remember why he did it, stating he was "blacked out" at the time of the incident and only remembers bits and pieces.
A first-degree arson conviction carries a 20-year prison sentence, $20,000 fine or both.
