The arrests of the three teens, ages 17, 17 and 16, was announced Friday morning.
This is an update of a story posted 10:27 a.m. Friday.
SPRINGFIELD - Three teens are charged with setting the June 27 fire that caused major damage to a vacant Wilbraham Avenue factory building that used to be home of the now-defunct Massachusetts Career Development Institute.
The fire took firefighters more than a day to fully extinguish, and left roughly half the building a pile of rubble. With the ownership of the property in flux, officials have said the cleanup costs on the site may cost the city as much as $1 million.
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said Friday afternoon that if the three suspects, ages 17, 17, and 16, are found guilty, he favors them being punished to the fullest extent of the law.
"They need to be held responsible for their actions," he said. "They put in danger the lives of firefighters and other residents of the area... Thank God no one was injured or killed."
Their arrests were announced by Springfield Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant at in a Friday morning press conference at fire headquarters.
He said the arrests were the result of a joint investigation by Springfield arson investigators and state police troopers assigned to the state Fire Marshall's Office.
The three suspects are considered juveniles because they are under age 18. Their names were not disclosed to the press.
Each is charged with 1 count of arson, 2 counts each of breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony, larceny, and single counts of malicious damage, and breaking glass belonging to another.
Conant declined to comment on whether the juveniles should be charged as adults given the magnitude of the damage.
"That's up to the DA," he said, referring to Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni.
James Leydon, spokesman for Gulluni, said under the Massachusetts statute for youthful offenders, arson is one of the charges that a minor can be charged as an adult. Once declared a youthful offender, a defendant would be subject to adult penalties and their identities could be made public following an indictment.
Gulluni as of Friday afternoon was reviewing the matter but had not reached a decision, Leydon said.
Sarno said if the district attorney decides to try them as adults under the youthful offender statute, he would support that decision. "If it goes down that road, it goes down that road," he said.
"This is not fun and games. These young people have to realize this was serious business," he said.
The three teens are alleged to have broken into the site sometime Sunday evening. Conant said they broke in and were looking to steal various minor items that were still inside the abandoned building.
Springfield Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant addresses the media Friday outside Springfield fire headquarters. On his right is deputy fire chief Glenn Guyer.Patrick Johnson / The Republican
At some point, they set a fire on the second floor and left.
The fire smoldered overnight before it was detected shortly after 9 a.m. the following morning, he said.
When firefighters arrived on scene, the second floor fire had burned through the floor and spread down to the first floor.
Firefighters initially entered the building, but it was quickly judged to be too dangerous, and the call was made inside of 10 minutes to have everyone get out the building.
The remainder of the fire attack was done from the outside, with waterline pumping thousands of gallons of water into the structure over the next 24 hours.
The three were identified through a combination of fingerprints found at the site, from surveillance video footage from the area, and from cooperation from neighborhood residents, Conant said.
He declined to discuss specifics on how they were identified.
Conant praised the work of district fire chiefs Brian Pereira and Michael Hess who directed operations at the fire scene. He also praised Deputy Chief Glenn Guyer who made the decision Monday afternoon to call in an excavator from Associated Building Wreckers to begin razing portions of the building as it burned.
The action allowed firefighters to direct water on fire, and to create a firebreak to stop the fire from spreading to the remainder of the building.
The scene at Wilbraham Avenue is enclosed in a fence. One have of the building where the front entrance and a steeple were located has been razed. The remainder of the building is still standing.
Inside the fence is a massive pile of bricks and debris.
Steven T. Desilets, the city Building inspector, said the property is likely to remain in that condition for the foreseeable future.
"We don't have possession of the property. It's tied up in bankruptcy," he said.
He described the building as being legally, "in no man's land" and a "zombie property."
The city does not own it, and the listed owner, the Massachusetts Career Development Institute Inc., largely exists only on paper. The board of directors for the non-profit career training center has been inactive since the facility closed in 2013.
"Our attorneys are looking to see what options we have," Desilets said.
He said the building has been "made safe" since the fire was extinguished. Parts of the building in danger of immediate collapse have been torn down and the entire parcel enclosed within a chain-link fence.
There is a possibility that the city could declare the remaining half condemned and have it knocked down, he said. But at the same time, if an owner comes forward with plans to redevelop the remainder, any demolition would be halted.
Desilets said the word is the mortgage has been purchased on the property, but it is not clear if whoever that is could be forced to clean up the property.
The city may well seek to acquire it for nonpayment of taxes, but that would likely take some time.
According to city records, the property had an assessed value of $1.23 million before the fire.
The property was tax-exempt while it operated as a non-profit school. Since 2015, it owes $61, 000 in property taxes.
