Deputies said they also found a stolen credit card and trading cards during the arrest.
PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — A man accused of starting a fire near a Pierce County home told a deputy he was trying to burn a bee that had stung him, according to charging documents.
The man was charged Tuesday in Pierce County Superior Court with second-degree reckless burning and second-degree possession of stolen property.
The case began Monday evening near 102nd Street South and Sheridan Avenue South in Parkland.
According to court documents, a Pierce County deputy saw flames coming from a small pile of sticks, pine needles and pine cones in the road, about 2 feet from a grassy embankment. A man was standing next to the fire, poking at it with a long bamboo stick.
When the deputy approached, the man began stomping on the fire, scattering burning material as wind carried it.
The deputy wrote that the flames reached about 2 feet high and were close enough to dead grass to potentially spread to a wood fence and a nearby home. He described the conditions as “fairly warm, windy and sunny.”
When asked what he was doing, the man initially said he did not start the fire and was only putting it out, according to the documents. The deputy noted the man was holding a lighter.
After being asked again, the man said, “There was a bee on it (the sticks). I was trying to light the bee.” He also said the bee had stung him, but he was unable to show any stings when asked.
The deputy wrote that he found two additional lighters on the man during the arrest.
Court documents say deputies also found a wallet containing Pokémon cards, Yu-Gi-Oh cards and a credit card that had been reported stolen in a robbery seven days earlier.
The items were returned to the owner, who told deputies they were taken May 25, according to the documents.
Central Pierce Fire extinguished the burned material.
The man was booked into the Pierce County Jail.
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