MAGNOLIA - When a fire ripped through an old house on the south side of Magnolia in May, no one thought much of it.
Less than 24 hours later, a squat, white house around the corner lit up in the night, sending firefighters again to the neighborhood dotted with shotgun houses and overgrown lots.
By last week, the seventh suspicious fire had broken out in the area, confirming to Magnolia Fire Chief Greg Pinner that he has trouble.
"Something's obviously going on," Pinner said last week after the latest fire leveled a vacant house in the city's poorest neighborhood. "We're not sure what."
Five of the seven fires were at vacant homes, and one destroyed a wooden shed behind a home that caught fire weeks later. The first fire broke out when that home's occupant was away.
The fires have left behind few clues, just piles of charred rubble and frightened residents who wonder if their homes will be next.
"There's one next door to me that's vacant, and I'm kind of afraid," said Mae Bell Daniel,72, who lives on Renfroe Street, where two of the fires have occurred.
Daniel's modest white home with wreaths on the doors and a neatly kept yard stands out on her depressed block. Most others have long been abandoned or look dilapidated.
"I wish somebody could do something about it," she said.
So far none of the fires has spread to other structures, and no one has been injured.
Authorities said they have no idea who may be setting the blazes.
Possible culprits such as methamphetamine labs, insur-ance fraud or vagrants trying to keep warm seem unlikely, firefighters said.
There weren't any signs of the explosive drug labs, none of the homes had insurance as far as firefighters could tell, and all but one of the fires broke out in warm months. County records indicate each home has a different owner.
The power and gas was were shut off to all the vacant homes, eliminating possible causes of accidental fires, Pinner said.
With no evidence, no witnesses and no homeowners seeking answers, there's little to be done, authorities said.
"If you don't have a victim, you don't have a crime," Magnolia police detective Todd Dew said after digging through records to check for fire investigations in the area.
Dew discovered the department has opened an inquiry into just one of the neighborhood fires, the one on July 3 that destroyed a Jewel Street home. He has active investigations and suspects in other fires in the city, but he said none of those was related to the seven in the neighborhood that sits in the southeast corner of the Columbia County seat.
If the fires are determined to be deliberate, making a case against anyone seems unlikely, he said.
"Arsons are hard to prove because most everything - evidence - burns up with them," Dew said.
The fires haven't prompted any complaints at City Hall.
City Attorney Ronny Bell echoed other officials who were surprised to learn there had been so many fires in one neighborhood in the past six months.
"You're kidding," Bell said. "I didn't know it was that many. Wow."
Alderman Mike Lewis said he didn't know a lot about the fires either.
"Obviously, I don't like it," he said, adding that he doesn't "get involved" with fire and police work. "We're doing what wecan."
But Daniel said she wished the city would do something with the vacant houses in her neighborhood.
"Didn't nobody do anything but walk in them and sleep in them and smoke drugs and stuff," she said.
Bell said the city has been working on cleaning up and demolishing abandoned houses.He didn't know of any efforts near Renfroe Street, but he said there's only so many that can be cleaned up and demolished each year.
"You can spend money to clean it up and put a tax lien on it, but all of it is a very difficult process," he said.
Otis Lee, who has lived on Renfroe Street for four years, said he thinks the fires are being started by a vagrant drug addict. He just doesn't know which one.
He said some "rock head" has been going into the homes, using drugs and burning them down.
Lee said he has a gun and a dog, and he's on the lookout.
"Believe me, if I catch him, I'm going to turn him in, and I'm going to catch him before the end of the year," he said.
Arkansas, Pages 17, 18 on 12/07/2008