“My family abandoned me… so I set it on fire.”: Naples man set on fire his home a day after his family left him

NAPLES, Florida — “My family left me, so I burned it down.”

A house on 19th Street SW was on fire when Greater Naples Fire Rescue got there. Windows that have been broken by the heat let out flames. The fire slowly ate away at the building from the inside.

As firefighters rushed to put out the fire, the owner of the house, Michael Edward Kurylak, walked around the chaos looking very upset.

He kept saying over and over again the same thing. But he always finished by saying that he was the one who started the fire.

BUILDING THE KINDLING

The day before, Kurylak had been inside the house. His wife was there, too. The arrest report says that she came to drop off some things and then picked up a few more.

Family members say Michael has been having trouble for a long time, but that his home is no longer “safe.” As his wife left, Kurylak told her what he was going to do.

He planned to set the house on fire.

Kurylak started slowly piling up furniture to make a makeshift fire. On February 22, around 4 p.m., he put a flammable accelerant on top of the wood pile and all around the house.

With the strike of a match, the house became an improvised fire pit.

SIFTING THROUGH THE ASHES

Greater Naples Fire Rescue was able to put out the fire and stop the fire from spreading. Because the fire was strange, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office also came to start what would be a short investigation.

“My family left me alone. I don’t have any food or water, so I burned it.”

Firefighters kept saying what Kurylak had been saying over and over again. He finally told the deputies why he did what he did and showed them how easy it was to start a fire.

Michael Kurylak was arrested and charged with starting the fire because he had something to do with it.

The house has been written off as a total loss and can’t be lived in.