Homeless man charged in Chesterfield vehicle fires

A homeless man has been charged with setting fire to six SUVs and trucks at a car dealership and neighboring business on Midlothian Turnpike in Chesterfield County.

James G. Burns, 47, is accused of stuffing paper or cloth into the vehicles' fuel tanks and setting them on fire yesterday about 6:30 a.m. The vehicles didn't explode, and no one was injured.

"Apparently he was angry about something," said Chesterfield police Capt. Terry Patterson. "Actually, I think his intent was to blow the things up."

"He walked into the 7-Eleven on Huguenot Road and said, 'You need to call police, I just set a bunch of vehicles on fire over on Midlothian Turnpike,'" Patterson said.

The fires were discovered by a Chesterfield fire official who was driving on Midlothian Turnpike when he spotted smoke coming from Whitten Brothers Chrysler Jeep Dodge Mazda in the 10700 block of Midlothian Turnpike.

He found one of the vehicles ablaze and extinguished the flames after putting on his firefighting gear, Patterson said. The other fires went out on their own.

Patterson said Burns set fire to four sport utility vehicles on the Whitten lot and two trucks at a neighboring business. He also did more than $1,000 in vandalism damage to three of the vehicles, Patterson said.

Burns was charged with six counts of attempted arson, three counts of felony vandalism and one count of misdemeanor vandalism.

Contact Mark Bowes at (804) 649-6450 or .