On Monday, May 3, a warehouse at the Salem Airport Self Storage was the site of a four alarm fire. The fire burned for hours that evening before the Salem Fire Department could extinguish it, destroying multiple storage units. Damages totaled more than $1 million dollars.
“I could see the plume of smoke from miles away at my house. It was a big fire,” Emmaline O’Donnell ’21 recalls from that evening.
In a press release, Salem Police Department stated that “detectives determined the fire was not accidental in nature and initiated an arson investigation.” They quickly identified a suspect, Tristan Sillman 22, through crime scene processing, interviews with witnesses and canvassing.
Sillman, a Salem resident, was located and subsequently detained on May 4. After being interviewed by detectives, Sillman was arrested and charged with 25 counts of arson in the second degree and 25 counts of criminal mischief in the first degree.
His arraignment is scheduled for today, May 5.
