Doorbell Camera Captures Moment 'Somebody Set Our House on Fire'

Thanks to their security camera, a family in Arizona captured the moment a shirtless stranger set fire to a wreath hanging on their front door.

The video, taken by a Nest front door camera and which has been viewed more than 700,000 times on TikTok, shows a disheveled man loitering around the doorway before appearing to ignite the wreath with a lighter out of view.

The motivation for the fire-setting and why that particular house was targeted remains unclear. The police force in El Mirage, a suburb of Phoenix, confirmed to Newsweek that the man had lit the wreath on fire and that it had been supplied with the doorbell footage.

"We do have a possible lead on the subject and are working on further identification and apprehension," Lieutenant Jimmy Chavez of the El Mirage Police Department said.

Brittany Thee, who lives in the home and posted videos and still images of the man online in the hope of identifying him, said the strange incident occurred around 5 a.m. local time (8 a.m. ET) on Saturday morning.

"We're okay. A little shook, but otherwise fine," she told a friend on Facebook. "We're [going to] invest in more cameras for sure."

In one clip, the man stumbles through the walkway to the home's patio while pulling his unbuckled shorts up. He looks around while swaying before reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that is not captured in the shot.

If anyone can help us, please - please, speak up. #arson #crime #attemptedmurdervictim #elmirage #elmirageaz #arizona #help

He then presses the door camera, before a series of clicking noises lead to the porch being bathed in an orange, flickering light while the man continues to stare at the door.

Another clip shows flames coming off the door as the man stumbles around with his shorts falling off his body before he walks back up the driveway.

"I'm terrified. I haven't slept," Thee told local news channel CBS 5 on Sunday. "Last night, I took my daughter to my parents' house. I didn't feel comfortable having her here. We didn't know if he was coming back."

"Initially, of course, I felt very violated," her husband, Tyler, said. "I felt like the security of my home was most definitely threatened, the security of my family. I took that very personally."

The Thees told local outlets that they had slept through the early-morning incident, with security notifications turned off and their dogs unroused by the events outside. The damage was only noticed the following day when Tyler had headed out of the house and smelled something burning.

"We woke up at 9, 10 in the morning," Brittany told local news station Fox 10. "My husband opened the bedroom door and was like, 'Somebody set our house on fire.'"

Brittany posted an image of their door, showing the charred remains of the wreath, with a burn mark on the door above it, soot covering the walls and ash on the doorstep.

Tyler explained that the family was fans of Halloween decorations, and the wreath that had been burnt, as well as the cobweb-patterned doormat, had been themed around the holiday. He expressed relief that the fire had not spread to the rest of the house.

Chavez said that officers had responded to the property around 9:30 a.m. the same morning.

With the rapid spread of smart doorbells, more strange porch-based happenings are being recorded and shared online. A survey of 1,096 smart homes by Smart Home Strategies in 2020 found around 16 percent of homes in the United States have one.

In recent weeks, clips have been shared of a stranger attempting to enter the wrong house in Alberta, Canada, and of a neighbor walking into someone's home unannounced.

In July, police in Filer, Idaho, vowed to investigate after doorbell camera footage showed a man grabbing a dog by its collar before throwing it on the ground and hitting it repeatedly.

Update 08/07/23, 12 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from the El Mirage Police Department.