Police are investigating a suspected arson following a vehicle fire Saturday in Orillia.
At 11 p.m., police received a call about a vehicle fire on Orion Boulevard in west Orillia, after a resident’s SUV was set on fire while parked in a driveway.
Security cameras at the residence show two people exiting a vehicle from the street. The first individual approached the driveway and appeared to spray a liquid on the parked vehicle, before the second person appeared to light the vehicle on fire.
Additional footage shows the fire department extinguishing the blaze.
“We are looking into it, and we are investigating it as arson,” said Orillia OPP Const. Brett Boniface. “If anybody has information regarding the incident, please contact police if you’ve not already been spoken to.”
Resident Nicole Parkes, who was visiting friends in Ramara at the time, said the vehicle belonged to her brother, who rents a unit attached to her home.
“A few people rang our doorbell and knocked on our door, trying to wake us up, but we weren’t here and, luckily, one of the neighbours down the road knew that we had a tenant, so she went around back and knocked on my brother’s door,” said Parkes, who works for OrilliaMatters.
“By the time he came up, the fire department was already here and his truck was already burned (and) melted into my driveway.”
She said the incident was “unsettling” for her family, and she has plans to install higher-quality security cameras at her home.
“We would like to invest in better cameras, and I would love to encourage more of my neighbours to buy cameras,” she said. “Whoever did it, they turned around in my neighbour’s driveway … and, had that neighbour had cameras, we probably would have their licence plate.”
