Coatesville says it underreported '08 arsons

Coatesville officials conceded yesterday that they had mistakenly underreported the number of arsons in the Chester County city last year.

Authorities in the onetime steel town, terrorized by an arson plague that began a year ago and that has intensified since Jan. 1, have been saying that 15 fires were set in Coatesville last year.

But that total does not square with figures that investigators probing the arson spree have developed.

"It's apparent there's a discrepancy in the numbers," city spokeswoman Kristin Geiger said. "We're doing everything we can to rectify the situation and provide the correct numbers."

The admission that the number of arsons in 2008 was greater than previously reported was in response to repeated requests from The Inquirer for information about the fires.

Geiger said the correct numbers, including dates and addresses, would be released today.

She said "different reporting mechanisms for county, city and state" agencies were responsible for the error in the number of 2008 arsons.

Before 2008, Coatesville had averaged one or two arsons a year. So far, 18 arsons have been recorded in 2009, leaving residents afraid to go to sleep. Five deliberate blazes also have been reported in neighboring communities.

The city responded to a right-to-know request from The Inquirer about the 2008 arsons with incomplete information: nine dates with no times and only a street name.

Asked about the missing information, the city's legal administrative assistant, Tatsiana Matsveyeva, referred a reporter to Fire Chief Kevin Johnson. He said reports had not been filed for six fires because they were extinguished before they affected any buildings.

Johnson also said he did not have easy access to the missing data for the nine arsons listed and could not guarantee when that information would be available.

John Hageman, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he understood "there are 15 arsons [in 2008] for which an arrest has not been made."

Hageman said the Coatesville Arson Task Force, a consortium of federal, state, county and local agencies formed two weeks ago at Gov. Rendell's request, had compiled the numbers for 2009 but was "interested in the unsolved arsons for 2008."

Three people were arrested in December in connection with at least four arsons, according to court records, but that number of arsons may also be higher. City Council President Martin Eggleston has said that the two adults and one juvenile still in custody admitted setting 15 fires. Citing the open investigations, county prosecutors have declined to comment on that.