Arvada Police arrested a 28-year-old man they suspected of starting between 10 and 12 dumpster fires beginning on July 23. The dumpster fires have all occurred in geographic cluster around 57th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard.

Trevin Everett Taylor was arrested on Aug. 26 after APD and Arvada Fire responded to a fire behind a business located in the Arvada Marketplace strip mall on the 7400 block of 52nd Avenue.

As firefighters worked to extinguish the fire behind a building, a dumpster fire broke out behind an adjacent building. Both fires were extinguished and resulted in property damage but no injuries.

APD’s K9 team tracked Taylor to the 7500 block of 53rd Avenue, where he was taken into custody.

Police claim that Taylor “confessed” to several dumpster fires in Arvada after he was arrested. 

However, police have not charged Taylor in the recent dumpster fire behind the Arvada Library that was caught on camera and circulated by local news outlets.

APD Spokesperson Dave Snelling said that the department did not know if Taylor is behind all of the recent fires.

“Without a confession, we can’t say for sure if they were all related, but we’ve had 10 to 12 similar cases recently,” Snelling said. “They’re in dumpsters; they’re in a similar area, geographically.”

Snelling said that the quality of the library fire video was too poor to say if the man on camera is Taylor.

“We are not sure if that is the same person in the video,” Snelling said. “Taylor didn’t admit to starting that fire, and the quality of the video prevents us from being able to definitively say ‘That’s him.’

“Since (Taylor’s arrest), we have not had any more similar dumpster fires,” Snelling continued. “We have had a couple of incidents of materials ignited near parks, but we’re unsure if they’re related.”

Taylor is currently in custody at the Jefferson County Jail. He has been charged by the First Judicial Attorney’s Office with multiple counts of felony arson. According to a background check, Taylor does not have any prior criminal charges.