Kalamazoo Serial Arsonist Called Authorities On Himself

Kalamazoo has seen an inordinate amount of structure fires this summer, but at first, nothing seemed odd about them. It's entirely possible that electrical work in abandoned, vacant buildings was just causing it, or small fires from unhoused individuals could have sparked them by accident.

But then they kept happening, and kept coming, and continued to spread, one by one, day by day, across the city. Eventually, people started asking, "Do we have a serial arsonist in Kalamazoo?" Turns out, the answer was "Yes," and now he's in custody, but for possibly the dumbest reason imaginable.

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George Horace Stanard, a 32-year-old man from Kalamazoo was arrested late last week for his involvement, and connection to a number of structure fires that had been reported over the past few months.

Police connected Stanard to the fires by noticing him on footage from several security cameras near many of the fires.

According to authorities, he would set the fires, and then watch them burn. Nearly all of the buildings were completely vacant at the time of him setting the fires, but unfortunately, one fire on June 12th on Walnut Street, that Stanard is connected to, did injure one firefighter!

But the nail in the coffin wasn't the security footage, or him staying around to watch his fires burn. No, Stanard was caught for the dumbest reason possible... He called the cops on his own arson.

On Sept. 3rd, nearly three months after he had allegedly set his first fires, he contacted Kalamazoo Consolidated Central Dispatch on his own phone, to report the fire that he set. He then walked into the On the Rocks Party Store, and waited.

It's unclear how many fires, exactly, that he started, but he did eventually admit to starting the ones where firefighters were injured, as well as the one on Sept. 3rd, and another one back on Aug. 24th on East Michigan Avenue.

He has been charged with starting at least EIGHT fires across the city, and now faces at least two first-degree arson charges, and more could come if it turns out he was responsible for even more structure damage across the city.