Utica firefighters are at the scene of a Saturday-morning house fire at 37 Waverly Place, according to radio transmissions.
The call came in around 3:30 a.m. and the first-arriving Utica police officers reported it was a vacant house. Police were speaking to neighbors.
The Oneida County air-supply van out of Maynard Fire Department in Marcy also was responding.
Local law and fire officials recently said an arson strike force should be formed because of the number of intentionally set fires in the city recently.
The Waverly Place fire is now the 15th blaze in less than three weeks. Seven of them were ruled intentionally set.
Just shy of half the recent fires in Utica are intentionally set. Let's call it 45%.
In the average American city the percentage of fires blamed on arson is roughly 5%.
