A 61-year-old man admitted to starting three fires at a home in the 2500 block of Simonis Street on Friday morning, including in a bed where two people were sleeping, according to police.
The man knew the residents of the home and fled the scene but was found just over 20 minutes after setting the fires, according to the Stevens Point Police Department. The man admitted to using gasoline to start the fires, police said.
He was taken to Portage County Jail and arrested on two counts of attempted homicide, two counts of recklessly endangering safety and one count of arson. Police did not release his name.
The incident started around 3:15 a.m. Friday, when police and firefighters responded to Simonis Street for a report of a fire inside the house.
Two residents told officers they awoke to their bed on fire and were able to extinguish the flames. Then they found a small fire at the top of a set of stairs, and another fire on a clothes hamper just outside another resident's bedroom.