Whatcom tire store owner says he tried to put out fire, but video allegedly shows different view
The owner suspected of setting fire to his Whatcom County tire shop last month reportedly sprayed an extinguisher before the fire started and made another phone call before calling 911 on the night of the fire.
He also reportedly owed more than $34,000 in unpaid rent, was due to be evicted from the location at the end of the month and filed an insurance claim for more than $133,000, according to Whatcom County Superior Court records.
Kerry Michael Bolton, 46, the owner of Bolton Tire Pros, was arrested July 27 by the Lynden Police Department and booked and released at Whatcom County Jail. He has been charged with first-degree arson.
As previously reported by The Bellingham Herald, the Bolton Tire Pros store at 8165 Guide Meridian Road, Lynden, was destroyed in an early morning fire on July 17. Kerry Bolton is listed as the governor and registered agent for the business by the Washington Secretary of State’s website.
Lynden police were called at 11:35 p.m. July 16 for the report of a structure fire at the Bolton Tire Pros, court documents state, and arrived to find the multi-garage bay facility with office above some of the bays fully engulfed in flames. The building, which is valued at $100,000, was a complete loss.
Bolton was on scene at the time of the fire, documents state, and he spoke to Whatcom County fire investigators, telling them:
▪ Bolton had pulled a generator out and attempted to get it started.
▪ Once Bolton got it started, the generator sputtered, and Bolton attempted to add fuel.
▪ While doing so, the nozzle on the fuel can broke, spilling gasoline onto the generator.
▪ The fuel on the generator caught fire.
▪ Bolton attempted to put the fire out with an extinguisher, but that was not effective.
▪ Bolton ran upstairs, grabbed a dog, ran out of the building and called 911.
The day of his arrest, Bolton posted on Facebook, writing, “I did not intentionally burn my shop down, it was an honest accident.” He asked people to “please don’t assume anything till this is over.”
Police investigation
Lynden police collected surveillance video of the incident from a building just north of Bolton Tire, documents state, and it reportedly showed a sequence of events different from what Bolton told fire investigators:
▪ At 11:05 p.m., a man who sub-rents the office above Bolton Tire Pros, was seen talking with Bolton before leaving the area.
▪ At approximately 11:09 p.m., Bolton was standing in a door between garage bays, then went into one of the bays. “A short time later a spray of what appears to be fire extinguisher spray, comes from the east side of the door, across the doorway and into the west garage bay.” Documents noted that no fire was visible at the time of the spray and that the spray had been in a direction away from the area where the fire started.
▪ At 11:22 p.m., the fire started on the northeast side of the building in the area that Bolton said the generator was located.
▪ Approximately a minute later there was a large flare up of flames. At about the same time, Bolton walked across the open door into the west garage bay, which is three bays away from the fire.
▪ Between 11:24 and 11:30 p.m., Bolton is in the building but is not seen by the security camera, and footage shows the fire increasing in intensity during that time frame.
▪ At 11:30 p.m., Bolton exits the building through the open door while talking on a cell phone and carrying a small dog. He is walking.
▪ At 11:31 p.m., Bolton gets into his vehicle and drives to the front of the building along Guide Meridian. The building is fully engulfed in flames by this point.
▪ At 11:32 p.m., Bolton drives to the parking lot of the building located just to the north of Bolton Tire Pros. It is at this point — approximately 10 minutes after the fire is shown starting — that Bolton called 911.
After obtaining a search warrant, police found that Bolton had called the office sub-renter, whom he was speaking to when he exited the burning shop, two minutes before Bolton called 911.
Police spoke to the sub-renter who said he paid Bolton approximately $3,500 per month to rent the office space above the shop and that he had not missed a payment. The sub-renter also reported that they were being evicted from the space at the end of July and that he already had leased a new shop in Lynden, but that Bolton had nowhere to move.
The sub-renter also confirmed to police that he had seen Bolton at the shop approximately a half hour before receiving a call from Bolton informing him about the fire.
Police then spoke to the property owner, who informed them that Bolton had missed his rent from April through July and in September of 2021 and owed $34,375 in past rent. The owner said he offered to pay half of the rent each month as a compromise, but had not received any payment from Bolton.
Investigators also found that Bolton had declared bankruptcy in 2017 and contacted Farmers Insurance, which verified that Bolton had a policy insuring the equipment in the shop and had claimed $133,500 in losses due to the fire.
A man who lives in a trailer on the property also told police that Bolton had said, “I should just burn Bolton Tire down,” a few months earlier, but added that at the time he thought Bolton was just joking after dealing with an angry customer.
Whatcom County Superior Court records show Bolton has previous convictions for robbery, vehicle prowling, reckless burning, taking a motor vehicle without permission, cruelty to animals and assault before 2006.
