UPDATE: Contractor In Hot Water After He Burns Barn Down Without A Permit

UPDATE: Michael Fehlberg, 47, of Mt. Pleasant, was cited for numerous ordinance violations totaling about $3,000 after he intentionally set a barn on fire so that he could clear it from a property.

According to a report by the Caledonia Police Department, Fehlberg doesn’t own the property, but he was contracted by the property owner, David Horvath, to oversee the development of the property. Horvath told police he asked Fehlberg to remove the barn, but he didn’t know Fehlberg intended to burn it down.

Fehlberg started the fire with gasoline. He had the gas can sitting about 50 feet away from the fire. To combat the fire, he had a garden hose and large water tank in a truck to combat the fire, but the fire was too large for the equipment to be effective, according to the report.

Police wrote Fehlberg several municipal citations including: burning construction debris, negligent handling of burning materials, unapproved burn without a permit, nuisance burn, violation of fire size, unmanageable fire, non-extinguishable fire, burning outside burning hours.

Caledonia firefighters spent several hours battling a barn fire that was started on purpose, even after they had denied the property owner a burn permit this spring.

At about 8:25 p.m. Caledonia Police called in the fire after they noticed large clouds of black smoke and fire coming from the property in the 5400 block of Highway 31.

Firefighters from station 12 on Five Mile Road and Douglas Avenue responded to the scene, then called for two tanker trucks because they needed more water.

Battalion Chief Jeff Henningfeld told police that he had denied a burning permit to the property owner, who intends to build on the property.

"I told the police to write whatever citations that fit," Henningfeld said. "We would never issue a burning permit to a private citizen to burn their barn."

When the permit request was made in the spring, the owners had asked if the fire department wanted to do a controlled burn. But it was denied because the barn was in too poor of condition. If a citation were issued, the citation would likely cost thousands of dollars, Henningfeld said.

"So they obviously took things into their own hands," he said.