Investigators: Arson may be to blame for Methuen fire

METHUEN, Mass. (WHDH) – Investigators believe an arsonist is to blame for a fire that started at a Methuen home early Thursday morning.

A Methuen woman – who hid her face while 7News interviewed her -- was getting ready for work around 3:30 a.m. when she saw flames through her window. She believes she was targeted.

“When I was changing, I hear something on the wall like when I look out the window it was like orangey. It was high. It was on the wall plus the table,” the woman said.

The woman said she ran outside and grabbed a garden hose and her teenage son got a fire extinguisher. The son called 911 after they put out the fire.

“There was a fire in back of our backyard but we took it out but I think somebody did it,” the son told a 911 dispatcher.

“It smelled like gas when I put out the fire here it smelled like gas,” said the woman.

Detectives took away a beer bottle that wasn’t on the woman’s patio when she went to bed the night before. The woman said the bottle smelled like gas.

Fire investigators say believe someone poured onto the table, splashed the siding, and lit it.

“I don’t have no enemies, so who can do this to somebody? See this happened now, what tells me that it’s not going to happen again?” the woman said.

The woman told 7News that gasoline was left inside the beer bottle.