A 53-year-old Kenai resident was arrested for alleged domestic violence arson and burglary Tuesday after Kenai Police say she intentionally set a fire at a Kenai home.
According to a Wednesday press release from the Kenai Fire Department, they responded around 9 p.m. to a reported house fire on Haida Drive, arriving to find heavy smoke coming from a two-story building.
The fire was extinguished quickly, they wrote, with help from Nikiski Fire Department and Central Emergency Services. No one was in the home and “moderate fire damage and significant smoke damage occurred.”
A second release by Kenai Police Department says that a house cat was found dead inside, and that their investigation found that the fire was intentionally set. They arrested Kimberly Rodgers that night on domestic violence charges of second-degree arson and first-degree burglary.
According to an affidavit by a Kenai Police officer included in charging documents, matches had been found on the ground outside the residence, and security camera footage from a neighbor showed a “suspicious” woman outside the home shortly before the fire.
Rodgers was contacted by police before 10 p.m., less than an hour after the fire was reported, the affidavit says. It says that after initially denying any involvement with the fire, Rodgers told Kenai police that she had entered the home and started the fire.
Later, at the Kenai Police Department, the affidavit says, Rodgers told police that she had entered the home — where she had until earlier this year lived — to collect belongings and look around. She said she was upset about her strained relationship with the person who lives at the home. When she found underwear she suspected belonged to another woman, she used matches and a gas torch to ignite them.
“She became frightened by the fire and she quickly fled from the residence,” the affidavit reads. She made no effort to report the fire as she walked back to her own home, police reported.
According to court records, Rodgers has now been arrested six times this year for her contact with the resident of the Haida Drive home. She was arrested for domestic violence assault on Feb. 12; unlawful contact on Feb. 25 and April 19; violating conditions of release on April 10; and violating a protective order on May 29. All of those precede the new charges of domestic violence arson and burglary.
Rodgers pleaded guilty in criminal cases tied to each of the five previous arrests.
Bail for the Tuesday arrest was set at a $5,000 performance bond and $7,500 appearance bond.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
