Personnel with the Pike County Fire Department on Monday night responded to a series of four fires in the area, some believed to possibly be arson-related.

“All I know is we’ve had too many fires tonight. We were scattered out all over the county,” Zebulon Fire Chief Dale Jackson said. “We believe we might have had an arsonist going around tonight. We have the fire marshal coming in ... to investigate.”

Three of the blazes were grass fires while the fourth involved an unoccupied home in the center of Zebulon.

“Out on Shackelford and Durham roads, we had where they cut a man’s gate and set fire to his hay - the big old rolled bales of hay. There were probably 40 bales destroyed,” Jackson said. “There was one (grass fire) on Lifsey Springs Road - it destroyed 30 acres of property and an abandoned house.”

According to Jackson, arson is suspected in both of these fires.

Jackson went on to say that the third grass fire, on New Hope Road, was a controlled burn that “got away” from the property owners.

At midnight, firefighters were still at the scene of the fourth fire of the evening.

The home, at 200 Banks St., sustained significant damage in the fire.

“This house has been abandoned for years and here now, all of a sudden, it catches fire,” Jackson said. “It was abandoned, but it was a well-built house. Basically, all that’s left now is an empty shell.”

Jackson said arson is also suspected in this incident, saying, “It was abandoned and didn’t have any power hooked up to it.”

In the series of fires, Jackson said most of the Pike County Fire Department was involved in suppression activities.

“There was probably a total of over 30 firefighters working,” he said.

“We have eight stations in the county and every station was out except Station 2.”

Authorities are investigating the cause of the three suspicious fires.

“The state fire marshal and the city and county investigators are looking into it,” Jackson said.