Santa Barbara police arrest man for starting fire in fake fireplace at Amtrak Station

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Santa Barbara police arrested a transient man after he allegedly started a fire in a fake fireplace at the Amtrak Station lobby on Thursday.

Thursday night around 9:20 p.m., officers said they received a report from an Amtrak employee saying a person had started a fire inside the station at 209 State Street.

The person was reportedly still at the scene and the employee who called provided a description of the individual to dispatchers.

Santa Barbara police, City firefighters and Amtrak police all responded to the scene.

Officers said they immediately smelled a lot of smoke coming from the lobby of the train station. When they looked, they found that the fire had been started in the lobby's non-operable fireplace using newspapers.

An Amtrak employee had reportedly used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames before the fire could spread to the rest of the passenger waiting area.

Police investigated the incident and identified the person suspected of starting the fire as a 63-year-old man. They said the man had just arrived in Santa Barbara on an Amtrak train earlier that morning.

A witness at the scene told police they saw the man standing in front of the fire and warming himself.

They said multiple train passengers had been sitting in the lobby when smoke started billowing out of the non-operable fireplace, filling the station before it was extinguished.

The transient man was arrested without incident and booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail for arson and arson during a state of emergency. His bail was set at $350,000.