Four teens and an 18-year-old are facing charges after Winnipeg police say multiple fires were set in the Transcona Bioreserve on Sunday, damaging multiple Manitoba Hydro poles and more than 40 hectares of naturalized park.
A 14-year-old girl, two 16-year-old boys, a 17-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman all face arson-related charges after the fires, police said Monday.
Police say the first several grass fires were set around 2:40 a.m. in the park. Nearby residents called the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service and crews came and put out the fires.
Later that day, around 5 p.m., several more grass fires were set in the same area, police said. The flames caught and spread throughout the park. Crews came and extinguished those fires, too.
Police officers were directed by witnesses to the Transcona Trail, where they found and arrested three suspects and recovered a lighter.
A fourth suspect later turned herself into police later in the evening, police said, and investigators arrested a fifth suspect at a nearby home around 5 a.m. Monday morning.
"Detectives believe that one suspect, a 14-year-old female, had been involved in the early morning fires and later returned with the other suspects when the evening fires were set," police wrote in a release.
The 14-year-old girl remains in custody. The other four accused have been released on a promise to appear in court.