CHAUVIN, La. – Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Deputies arrested a firefighter and charged him with arson after setting fire to a shed that quickly spread to a home.
Jesse Marcel, 21, remains in Terrebonne Parish jail on a $1 million bond. If convicted, the firefighter could face up to 20 years in prison.
Late Sunday night, TPSO was responded to a fire at 5608 La. Hwy. 56 in Chauvin, an address to a house that’s right next to the Little Caillou Fire Department,” Terrebonne Sheriff Vernon Bourgeois said. The owner, Whyley Pellegrin, and his wife were able to escape without injury and went next door to the fire department and called the on-call fire fighter.
Pellegrin, also a firefighter, and Marcel, the on-call firefighter, were able to put out the blaze.
An investigation determined that the fire was purposefully set in a shed in the back of Pellegrin’s house and quickly spread to the home, Bourgeois said.
Marcel confessed to setting the fire, though he said he didn’t intend for it to get out of control, Bourgois said. Shortly after setting the blaze, Marcel went back to the fire house and got in bed without telling the Pellegrin’s their house was on fire.
