Two latest Coatesville arsons do no damage

Two more fires were set in Coatesville late Friday, the Chester County Arson Task Force said yesterday.

The arsons, which caused no injuries or damage to homes, brought the number in Coatesville to 22 for the year.

They were reported about 11:40 p.m. in the 100 block of Hope Avenue and the 600 block of Madison Street, said John Hageman, spokesman for the task force. A lawn chair and a trash can were set ablaze.

Since February 2008, federal investigators have recorded 70 arsons in the Coatesville area, including a blaze that killed an 83-year-old Nazi work-camp survivor in December and a January fire that gutted 15 rowhouses in the 300 block of Fleetwood Street. Before Friday, the latest arson occurred March 14 in the 200 block of Valley Road.

The Friday fires were contained outside and occurred within several blocks of each other in the city's West End.

Agnes Zydinsky, 86, lives two doors from the single-family home on Madison Street where the lawn chair was set on fire. "I just can't imagine the kind of person who would do this," she said. "I'm very concerned."

Several blocks away, Wilfredo Acevedo described a fire that he said had been brazenly set in a trash can between two duplexes on Hope Avenue. He was awake when it started, he said, and saw someone running from the scene - about the time that firefighters were responding to the Madison Street fire. "There had to be at least two people," Acevedo said, adding that they must have approached the house from the front, passing through a yard illuminated by a porch light and a motion-detector light.

Six people have been arrested to date and charged with some of the arsons.