Iowa State students helped prevent added damage Nov. 9th when an ISU freshman set fire to someone else’s property three different times throughout the course of the evening.

Grant Whitaker, freshman in open option, was charged with reckless use of fire after he was found by students behind a car on Campus Ave.

Students had noticed smoke and flames rising from the driver’s side of the vehicle before finding Whitaker hiding behind the car.

When the witnesses asked Whitaker what he was doing, Whitaker took off running northbound from the area, according to the police report.

Three males that witnessed the exchange ran after Whitaker, and they were able to detain him for a short amount of time before he got away again.

Fire fighters later determined that Whitaker had placed leaves on top of the front driver’s side wheel, which were set on fire. As the fire grew, the tire exploded and caused damage to the engine compartment.

Geoff Huff, Ames police investigations commander, said that witnesses positively identified Whitaker once police apprehended him.

“We get the occasional dumpster fire, the occasional couch fire—somebody hauls a couch out into a public area and that ends up on fire—but people starting vehicles on fire doesn’t happen very often,” Huff said.

However, Kevin McKeon, senior in sociology, said that before being spotted trying to start the car fire, Whitaker twice set fire to the couch on the front porch of his house on the west side of Lincoln Way.

McKeon said that when he got home from work, someone knocked on his door, telling him that they saw smoke coming from the couch and that they put it out.

“I was like ‘oh thanks.’ It looked just like a cigarette burn so I didn’t think anything of it,” McKeon said. “In about 15 minutes, I looked out a window in my house again and saw a really big, flickering orange light reflecting off of my neighbor’s house, so I ran back down there because I knew it was a fire again.”

McKeon said he found a group of about 15 people who had dragged the flaming couch off his porch and onto the street and were trying to put out the fire. McKeon said he got his fire extinguisher and put out the fire that had now engulfed half of his couch.

“The guy came back a second time and tried to set it on fire again, and this time it was a lot bigger,” McKeon claimed. “None of us knew the guy, so obviously he didn’t have some problem with us. He was pretty much just out to cause problems.”

McKeon said he is grateful for the number of “Good Samaritans” out that night.

“I was really impressed with how many people helped me out. I had two different groups of people that ran up and tried putting out the fire on my couch,” McKeon said. “I’m just kind of proud of the people of Ames for stepping up on three different occasions.”

As for Whitaker, “I would tell him he owes me a couch.”