{"id":69328,"date":"2025-08-14T15:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T15:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/69328\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T15:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T15:37:07","slug":"man-charged-with-arson-in-wake-of-several-downtown-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/69328\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Charged With Arson in Wake of Several Downtown Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755185827_591_st-johns-regional-fire-department.jpg\" class=\"header-image\" alt=\"Man Charged With Arson in Wake of Several Downtown Fires\"\/>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Police have charged a man with setting several fires in downtown St. John\u2019s earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-year-old Caleb Boland-Pelkey remains in custody pending an appearance in provincial court today. He faces three charges of arson with the disregard of human life, each carrying a fine of $50,000.<\/p>\n<p>The fire department was forced to respond to several areas between 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night and 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>The RNC says the fires were intentionally set within several blocks of each other between Lemarchant Road and New Gower Street.<\/p>\n<p>No one was injured and no buildings were damaged thanks in large part to the quick response of firefighters from the nearby Central Fire Station.<\/p>\n<p>Police say the investigation is ongoing in consultation with resource enforcement officers with the Department of Fisheries, Forestry, and Agriculture.<\/p>\n<p>Officials are reminding everyone that a fire ban remains in effect across the province and open fires are not permitted.<\/p>\n<p>To report a fire call 911, or anonymously by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or visiting www.nlcrimestoppers.com.<\/p>\n<p>A $5,000 reward is available to anyone who offers information that leads to the identification and arrest of those responsible for starting a wildfire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Police have charged a man with setting several fires in downtown St. John\u2019s earlier this week. Twenty-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-69328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}