Greenfield Fire investigating more suspicious fires, tags
The Greenfield Fire Department on Thursday said there have been at least three more suspicious fires in the city since last week, bringing the total number to at least eight.
But now investigators are looking into some unique graffiti tags they believe could be related to all these fires.
Greenfield Fire Chief Jim Langborg said two new fires were set in the same location and another one happened on Thursday outside the Little League Fields near Oak Avenue Elementary School.
But firefighters noticed something strange nearby that fire: a graffiti tag that says “PYRO.” And that is not the only one.
“What we’ve noticed is around town, a tagger by the name of Pyro has been popping up in different locations,” said Langborg. “And in fact, today that tag was within feet of the latest fire.”
These “PYRO” tags have been seen in Patriot Park, though there have been no fires there. KION found another “PYRO” tag at another fire location in a grassy area behind the Rite Aid on Walnut Avenue.
“If you look at the writing, and if you look at our Facebook page, you’ll see some different tags, but it’s all very similar,” said Langborg. “You’ll see that there have been some slight changes, progressions like in today’s tag which I think is one of the newer ones.”
The investigation is still ongoing. They have not gotten any closer to identifying who is doing this, but Langborg said they have surveillance footage.
Some residents say it is scary to see this happening.
“I mean it’s probably a person who’s not all there doing this, damaging… I mean, it’s properties that they’re damaging,” said Sandra Ruiz, a Greenfield resident.
The fire department hopes putting out pictures of the graffiti and getting the word out there will help solve this case. They want to stop this before something worse happens.
“When you see a tag that says “PYRO” and there’s a fire set nearby, we’re going to look into that,” said Langborg.
If you have any information about the graffiti tags or any of the suspicious fires that have been going on in the city, you are encouraged to call the Greenfield Fire Department at 831.674.5484. You can remain anonymous.
