Reporter staff

Auburn Police have arrested a suspect in connection to a series of arsons that have haunted the city since last fall.

Police arrested an Auburn man in his 20s and brought him into custody shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday.

The north Auburn resident, whom police did not identify, is linked to 8 to 15 fires set throughout the city since mid- to late-September, police said.

The man may be charged as early as Friday.

Auburn suffered several non-structural fires that had been intentionally set along the Interurban Trail or involving Dumpsters and flags since September.

Between October and November, 11 residential structures were intentionally set, according to VRFA reports. All told, 25 suspicious fires were reported and investigated throughout Auburn during the arson spree, authorities said.

All of the affected structures were clustered on the north end of the city, and most of the structure fires were set between 6 and 11 p.m., and appeared to be random, investigators concluded.

Nobody has been hurt to date, but in some cases structures sustained significant damage.

Police made the arrest Thursday in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the FBI, Valley Regional Fire Authority and other agencies.

The arrest came in the aftermath of two more north-end fires reported within 15 minutes of each other early Thursday morning. No one was injured in the latest fires, which damaged a boat and an occupied home.

The suspect left an identifiable fingerprint following a November fire that damaged a home and surrounding property, Auburn Police Cmdr. Mike Hirman said.

“On one of those vehicles we lifted a print and found that the latent print belonged to one of the persons of interest that we had already identified,” Hirman said at a Thursday afternoon news conference at Auburn Police headquarters. “The difficulty, of course, was that it was on the outside of the car, and that could easily be explained. We then set up, through the assistance of the ATF, electronic surveillance of this individual and monitored his movements and activities.”

Hirman said the latest fires helped police identify and arrest the suspect.

“We identified evidence that links that suspect to those locations, and we’re happy to say … we arrested that individual, and he is in custody at this time,” Hirman said. “We’re hoping that these fires stop now.”