Man suspected of setting car on fire with propane torch charged with arson

MARION - A Marion man has been charged with arson, accused of setting his car on fire with a propane torch.

Ronald E. Hall, 51, was charged with one count of arson, a fourth-degree felony, in Marion Municipal Court on Monday.

Police believe he started the car fire Sunday evening after a domestic dispute at his home in the 900 block of Daffodil Drive, according to police records and Marion Police Major Jon Shaffer. The police major was unsure what the argument was about.

Firefighters were called to the car fire shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday, and by the time they arrived, the car, a 2006 Honda Accord, was engulfed in flames, said Marion City Fire Platoon Chief Paul Glosser. A car of the same make and model was listed as having a median value of $3,500 on Kelley Blue Book, he said.

A neighbor reportedly told police about seeing Hall set the vehicle on fire with a propane torch, according to Glosser and Shaffer.

"It looks like he had been drinking to the point that he was drunk," Shaffer said.

No one was hurt in the fire, the police major said, but the fire did come "dangerously close" to nearby vehicles.

Officers took the propane torch believed to have been used to set the fire into evidence, Shaffer said.

Glosser was unsure what, if any, evidence had been collected by fire investigators, saying that the lead investigator was off duty.

Marion Police Major Jon Shaffer said the police department doesn't receive many arson calls.

"It's a rare occurrence, I would say," he said.

There were nine reports to law enforcement of arson in Marion in 2016, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

Shaffer said that police had been called to the Daffodil Drive residence for domestic-related calls five times in the recent past, with the most recent prior call being in 2016.

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