ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996               TAG: 9604250057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER 

TWICE BURNT: AS A GARAGE, AS GARBAGE

Brenda Orange couldn't understand it Tuesday afternoon when Roanoke firefighters told her that her garage had caught fire, damaging her house, in what may have been an act of arson.

"I said, 'What? The garage burnt? The garage already burnt," she said.

The garage in her backyard at 1525 Eighth St. S.E. caught fire suspiciously two weeks ago. Some friends helped tear it down, leaving the wood piled in her back yard.

Orange said she spent three hours Tuesday morning putting the wood into piles so her garbage hauler could pick it up. Then she left to go to the grocery store.

When she came back, she said, the debris was on fire, burning her back yard and warping the vinyl siding on the back of her house.

Roanoke firefighters received a call about the fire at 1:33 p.m., arrived at the house five minutes later and put the fire out in about a minute, Lt. Baron Gibson of the Roanoke Fire Department said.

Tuesday's fire appeared to have been intentionally set and may have been an act of arson, he said.

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