Alleged fire starter held on Big Isle

A Hawaii island man caught his 36-year-old neighbor on cellphone video dancing after she allegedly set fire to her Hawaiian Ocean View Estates rental because she thought it was haunted.

Jordan Anger said he saw the woman feeding the flames.

“She threw other things onto the fire — boxes of clothes,” he said by telephone Wednesday. She was grabbing whatever she could. She was in a rage, obviously not well.”

Police arrested the woman on suspicion of first-degree arson.

Anger said his fiancee’s mother heard yelling, but ignored it. When she put the cat out, she saw the billowing smoke and ran in to tell Anger.

Anger called 911, and from his lanai saw 15-foot flames coming out of the house, so he called down to her, “Hey, your house is on fire, you better get out.”

That’s when she lit a bag and threw it in, Anger said.

“She said, ‘It had to burn,’” he said. “Flames were everywhere.”

Hawaii County Police got the call at 6:02 a.m. Wednesday about the fire on the 92-8800 block of Reef Circle Mauka.

Damage to the structure was estimated at $175,000, police said.

Anger talked to people congregating below his lanai about the woman.

The woman declared, “There’s white pineapples growing in the house,” Anger recalled. “It had to be burned down.”

“When a neighbor asked, ‘Why are you doing it?’ she said, ‘Because it was haunted. I had to do it,’” Anger said.

After he argued with her, “she walked a few steps back from the car, stood behind a tree, she puts both hands in the air, and says, ‘Yahoo!’” Anger said. “She danced in a circle with her hands in the air, jumping up and down.”

Anger said police arrived and handcuffed her. She calmed down, but got riled up when neighbors walked by, he said.

The homeowners live in Kona, and an agency rents out the house for them, Anger said.

“You hear of arson and stuff, but you never hear of someone getting caught on camera,” he said.