Firefighter accused of arson

April 8– A Saltillo city volunteer firefighter is charged with arson, accused in Tuesday’s burning of a trailer belonging to the mayor, Hardin County Fire Chief Melvin Martin said.

Robert Frost Jr., 18, was arrested today following an investigation by the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, Division of Fire Prevention – Bomb and Arson Section.

Saltillo Mayor Darnell Lowery said he had been letting Frost and his parents live in the trailer rent-free.

City and Hardin County firefighters were dispatched to the mobile home located in Saltillo at 10:06 p.m. The first county volunteers arrived at 10:15 p.m., followed by a city engine two minutes later, dispatch records show.

The fire was quickly extinguished and contained to a portion of the dwelling, but the trailer built sometime in the 1970s was already in poor condition and is totaled, according to Martin.

Lowery said Frost confessed to setting a pile of dirty clothes in the mobile home on fire and then going outside to smoke a cigarette.

"It was just strange," he said. "If you don’t have a place to go, why would you burn where you’re living now?"

Lowery said the trailer was uninsured and that despite the loss, he is not interested in sending Frost to prison.

"You don’t want to ruin a young man’s life over something like that. A mobile home can be replaced. He has been crying out for help so long, and maybe this can save his life," he said.

The incident marks the second fire the mayor has experienced in less than a month.

On March 11, his Main Street business, Lowery Electrical and Plumbing, was heavily damaged in a fire that investigators initially determined was electrical in origin.

(Editor's note: Look for an expanded version of this story in the upcoming print edition on April 15.)