Smithfield Police and the Johnston County Fire Marshal’s Office are treating a house fire Thursday morning as arson.
The early morning blaze at 1013 Lemay Street, just off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, heavily damaged a vacant home owned by Vera Johnson of Baltimore, Maryland.
The home had been unoccupied since an August 2012 fire caused significant damage to the same home.
Police Captain R.K. Powell said the fire was intentionally set.
The blaze marks the second house fire in Smithfield within a week. Early Saturday morning, a 43 year-old deaf man died in a house fire on South Fifth Street next to the Smithfield Police station. The Johnston County Fire Marshal’s Office ruled the blaze as accidental due to an unattended pot being left on a cooking stove.
Anyone with information about the arson fire on Lemay Street is asked to contact the Johnston County Fire Marshal’s Office at 919-989-5050 or the Smithfield Police Department at 919-934-2121.
