Only On 9: Surveillance Video Shows Possible Start To Pott. Co. Wildfire

Surveillance video from a home in Shawnee captured a possible arsonist Friday night.

“What alerted me, I saw the camera light up,” Allyn Warkentin said.

His security cameras captured the video. The clearest images from two of more than a dozen he has placed around his land

 “The flame came, flared up as soon as the vehicle cleared it before the camera could see it,” Warkentin said.

In the video, it takes just minutes. The car, which as heading west, slowed down and the ground lit up. The flame much larger than a cigarette butt. Warkentin’s cameras sat close to 50 yards from the road.

After one minute, the flames lit up the screen. After two, a nearby tree burst into flames while cars drive through the blaze. After just five minutes, the fire begins to spread. The video footage is too grainy to get a good look at the car.

One of the places hit was Warkentin's son's home who was found mending fence in his blackened field. Chad Warkentin's wife was home when the fire broke out.

“She had driven past on our road and within 15 minutes, noticed there were orange coming over the hill. And she called my parents who just live down the road and from there the blaze was just going like crazy,” Chad Warkentin said, taking a break from his repairs.

 “Well somebody was out doing mischief or had it in for somebody,” Allyn Warkentin said when asked who he thought the driver or passengers caught on video could be.

Since capturing the fire's start last night, Allyn Warkentin showed it to Pottawatomie County sheriff deputies. The case has now  been turned over to investigators.

The Pottawatomie County wildfire scorched hundreds of acres.

“Sheriff's deputy he just reviewed it and he agreed that it wasn't an accidental,” Allyn Warkentin said.