A former Ellicott City volunteer firefighter pleaded guilty Wednesday in Howard County Circuit Court to setting a neighbor?s shed on fire in August.
Joseph Schroen, 21, was sentenced to 18 months in the Howard County Detention Center and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation by Judge Dennis Sweeney.
He will serve two years of supervised probation after his sentence and be recommended for drug and alcohol treatment.
“I think it?s proper to address what appears to be an unusual interest in fire,” said Brendan Clary, a Howard County prosecutor.
Schroen has been fascinated with fire since high school, when he set a classmate?s shirt ablaze in auto shop class, Clary said.
When Schroen was living at his grandmother?s house on Melba Road in Ellicott City this summer, he set five separate fires on the 2500 block of the neighborhood, according to court documents.
On Aug. 18, he reportedly told neighbor Joon Kang that Kang?s shed was on fire. He used Kang?s telephone to call 911 and identified himself to the operator as a Baltimore County firefighter, according to court documents.
Earlier in the summer, Schroen set a bird feeder and mailbox on fire and ignited a series of brush fires, police said.
Police asked Schroen why he set the fires, and he replied that he “wanted to see the fire trucks,” charging documents said.
Schroen, who was suspended from the Ellicott City Fire Company for criminal activity, has also been charged with reckless endangerment and impaired driving.
He has issues with alcohol, and was intoxicated when he set Kang?s shed on fire, said defense attorney Louis Willemin.
“We may have a real problem here in the future,” said Sweeney. “Thankfully at this point it was just a shed.”
