Man arrested following series of early morning fires (updated)

Burned garbage lay scattered on the sidewalk Friday morning after someone set fire to a trashcan on 20th Street near Capp.

UPDATE 12/5/16: Police have released the name of the man they say is responsible for a recent string of arson fires around the Mission.

Michael Boyle, 41, of San Francisco, was arrested near 19th and Florida streets at around 3 a.m. on Nov. 18, and believed responsible for 11 arson fires in the Mission and SOMA from Oct. 26 through Nov. 18, according to San Francisco Police Spokesman Carlos Manfredi.

Michael Boyle (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Police Department)

Many of the fires involved sidewalk trash receptacles, although in one instance a trashcan in the entrance way of a bank was set on fire. Boyle is also suspected of igniting a camping tent that caused a car to catch fire, Manfredi said.

ORIGINAL POST: A man was arrested following a string of trashcan fires in the neighborhood early Friday morning, police said.

The 41-year-old suspect was taken into custody just before 3 a.m. after witnesses pointed him out as the person responsible for setting multiple trashcans on fire within a two-block radius in the Mission, according to San Francisco Police spokesman Carlos Manfredi. The fires were at 18th and Folsom, 20th and Folsom and 18th and Florida streets.

Minutes earlier, around 2:24 a.m. someone reported a trashcan on fire on 20th at Capp Street, Manfredi said. The trashcan, one maintained by the city, is in front of Alioto Mini Park.

Prior to that, at 2:04 a.m., firefighters were called to the area of 16th and Folsom streets where they found a Jeep Cherokee on fire.

Investigators are looking into whether the man arrested this morning also started the car fire and the fire at Capp and 20th streets, Manfredi said.

In a possibly related incident, friend of CSC Jeff tells me that around 2 a.m. Thursday, he and his girlfriend spotted a trashcan on fire just inside the entryway of US Bank building at Mission and 22nd streets. The couple phoned 911 and waited until SFFD arrived to presumably put the fire out.