Police: Wannabe Weatherman Set Fire to Gain Facebook Views

Atlanta — The search is on for a man in a dark blue SUV last seen where a handful of fires began in Georgia. Authorities in North Carolina suspect arson in more than 20 wildfires burning in a national forest. And in Kentucky, a wannabe weatherman faces an arson charge after police said he admitted starting a fire to draw attention to his Facebook selfie videos.

“It’s really too bad because he’s not a bad kid — he’s just misguided,” Jenkins Police Chief James Stephens said on Friday after Johnny Mullins, 21, was jailed this week on a second-degree arson charge.

“He likes to do Facebook videos and have people follow him on his ‘weather forecast,’ so that’s pretty much why he did what he did,” the chief said. “He enjoyed the attention he got from the Facebook stuff.”

“He didn’t realize how much danger he was putting other people in,” Stephens added.

No arrests were announced in most of the rest of the suspicious fires, which have been torching forests in and around the southern Appalachian mountains. The relentless drought across much of the South has removed the usual humidity and sucked wells and streams dry, making the woods ripe for fire.

Tens of thousands of acres have burned, about a dozen of the largest fires remain uncontained and many people to evacuate their homes.

— The Associated Press