A 44-year-old Vancouver man was sentenced Friday in Clark County Superior Court to 21 months in prison for intentionally setting fire to the roof of Shanahan’s Pub & Grill in January.
Judge Emily Sheldrick also imposed 18 months of supervised release for Eugene Fletcher Scott, who pleaded guilty to a single charge of first-degree arson, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Colin Hayes said in an email.
Scott formerly worked as a janitor at Shanahan’s but was let go for drug-related activity, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Vancouver Fire Department crews were dispatched at 2:06 p.m. Jan. 9 to 209 W. McLoughlin Blvd., for a report of a commercial structure fire.
The first engine arrived at Shanahan’s within three minutes, department spokesman and firefighter Joe Hudson previously told The Columbian. By then, everyone inside the building had evacuated, he said. No one was injured.
There were employees and at least two customers inside the business and another approximately 30 customers outside on the patio when the fire was set, court records say.
There was no fire visible from the ground, but the original 911 caller told dispatchers it was on the building’s roof, Hudson said. Firefighters climbed onto the roof and found smoldering materials on the south end. They used a fire extinguisher on the materials; no water was needed as the flames had mostly died out, he said.
Deputy fire marshals and investigators with the Vancouver Police Department’s Arson Unit responded and began looking into the cause. The fire resulted in about $50,000 worth of damage, court records state.
Witnesses and surveillance cameras from two nearby businesses captured a man approaching the area from the south with a ladder over his shoulder and a 5-gallon bucket in his other hand. Investigators located the ladder propped against a business to the south of Shanahan’s and found shoe prints on an awning next to the top of it, according to the affidavit.
Investigators determined the suspect set the bucket on the roof and lit its contents on fire with ignitable liquid, the affidavit says.
The suspect was later identified as Scott, though court records don’t elaborate on how that determination was made. (Shanahan’s had shared photos from surveillance footage of the suspect on social media.)
Scott initially told investigators he was in Portland on the day of the fire, but his parents contradicted that and said he left home around noon. They also told investigators that Scott held a grudge against Shanahan’s and often talked about it, according to the affidavit.
