A 46-year-old Kurtistown man is alleged to have intentionally set his car on fire early Wednesday morning while it was inside an open-air carport, setting off a destructive and potentially deadly chain reaction that brought firefighters and police to his mother’s home.
According to court documents filed by police, Hermundo Tagalicud told officers responding to a 2 a.m. call to the family’s Iwasaki Camp home that he used a lighter and brown paper bag to torch his car “because I didn’t like it anymore.”
The fire reportedly destroyed Tagalicud’s car, then spread to his brother’s vehicle, destroying it, and causing minor damage to the rear taillights of a third vehicle.
Arriving firefighters found Tagalicud’s and his brother’s vehicles fully engulfed in flames, with the fire spreading to the carport and onto the outside wall of the home, with Tagalicud’s 77-year-old mother inside, asleep.
No one was injured and the Fire Department was able to extinguish the blaze before it seriously damaged the home.
Police charged Tagalicud with second-degree arson, a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment upon conviction. Court documents indicate Tagalicud has no prior felony convictions.
At Tagalicud’s initial court appearance Friday, Deputy Public Defender Patrick Munoz asked Hilo District Judge Harry Freitas to grant Tagalicud supervised release or to order an updated bail study using an Ilocano interpreter.
Deputy Prosecutor Jared Auna objected to supervised release and asked the judge to increase Tagalicud’s $5,000 bail.
“The offense itself is of a gravity that should keep this defendant in jail. But separate to that, Judge, with July 4th coming around the corner, there’s going to be firecrackers everywhere. And it would be dangerous to put somebody … with this likelihood of setting fires out for that period of time,” Auna argued.
The judge maintained Tagalicud’s bail, ordered an updated bail study and scheduled a preliminary hearing for Tagalicud at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Tagalicud remains in custody at Hawaii Community Correctional Center.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.