The Marion County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the theft of three pickup trucks that were all later destroyed by fire. A stolen ATV was later found abandoned in a creek. Sheriff Kevin Cripps believes all the cases may be related and are under investigation.
The Salem Fire Protection District was first called to a car fully involved in the Citation Oil Fields off Page Road southwest of Salem at 2:18 Saturday morning. A second vehicle was found fully engulfed in flames at 3:07 Saturday morning on South Hotze Road north of Lazy Acres.
Salem Assistant Fire Chief Bill Fulton says both fires were definitely arson and it appeared the vehicle in the South Hotze Road fire had been pushed down into the deep ditch before the fire was apparently started.
Later in the morning, the sheriff’s department was notified of another stolen pickup truck that had been set on fire and was in the Dyke Pond near the Citation Oil water plant. The fire was out when the vehicle was found.
The vehicles had all been reportedly stolen in the rural Centralia and Lake Centralia area overnight on Friday or early Saturday morning.
The sheriff’s department also received a report of an ATV stolen sometime before Saturday morning from a home on Levy Road. The ATV was later found in the middle of Crooked Creek near the Selmaville Road bridge.
