Kaplan man held in series of arsons
KAPLAN — Authorities arrested a 55-year-old man Saturday accused of setting 12 fires in Kaplan in the past two years, including one at the vacant Kaplan Rice Mill, State Fire Marshal Butch Browning said.
Felician Joseph “Fish” Primeaux, 608 N. Louisiana St., was booked into Vermilion Parish Jail with 12 counts of arson and was being held in lieu of $300,000 bail, Browning said.
Primeaux is accused of setting nine buildings on fire, three of which were burned multiple times, Browning said.
The State Fire Marshal’s Office, Kaplan Police Department and the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office have deployed a special task force that during the past nine months has investigated a series of suspicious fires at old, vacant buildings since 2007, Browning said.
Evidence at the scene of a fire at a vacant home on 912 W. 10th St. at 2:16 a.m. Saturday led to Primeaux’s arrest, Browning said.