Middletown officials report multiple fires, arrest in suspected arson; police outline fireworks enforcement and new grants

At a Middletown Common Council meeting, fire and police leaders gave detailed reports of several recent major incidents — including a suspected arson at a commercial building — and outlined stepped-up enforcement and staffing for upcoming summer events.

Fire Chief (name not specified) told the council the department responded to a series of large calls in recent weeks. On one day the department went to a mutual-aid dispatch at National Wholesale Liquidators (address given in the meeting), attended a deck collapse that injured two people, responded to a multi-alarm fire at “Old Gilman Cleaners” on Dawson Avenue with “multiple points of origin,” and later fought a fourth-alarm fire at 256 East Main Street. The chief said the fourth-alarm fire began with an electrical problem on the second floor that extended into the attic, affected five apartments and a first-floor commercial business, and that the building remained condemned. The department also returned the next day to extinguish…