According to news accounts, eight portable restrooms and three hand-wash stations were torched at a fenced San Francisco construction site last weekend. But officials say the fire was not related to a string of portable restroom arson reports in the city going back to 2008.
Police arrested a 27-year-old homeless man in connection with Saturday’s fire and he was charged with 11 counts of arson. A witness identified the man as having jumped over a fence at the construction site shortly after the fire broke out.
Between November 2008 and February 2009, about 30 restrooms were set on fire in San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Examiner. No one was charged in connection with those fires. Police believe the rash of fires stopped when the arsonist was detained for another crime.
