ATLANTA—A wannabe weatherman was jailed for arson after admitting he started a wildfire to draw attention to his selfie videos on Facebook, his town’s police chief said Friday. Meanwhile, a Georgia sheriff appealed for help identifying the driver of a dark blue SUV last seen where other wildfires began. And in North Carolina, authorities suspect arson in more than 20 wildfires burning in a national forest.
“It’s really too bad because he’s not a bad kid—he’s just misguided,” said James Stephens, the police chief in Jenkins, Kentucky, where Johnny Mullins, 21, was arrested 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.
