A Muncy area man was arrested this week on charges of allegedly setting his mother’s South Williamsport vacant house on fire several months after her death in 2020, according to state police.

Peter Allen Zielewicz, 43., of 3726 Route 442, Muncy, faces felony charges of arson, reckless burning, possession of explosive incendiary material, risking a catastrophe, criminal mischief, submitting a fire insurance claim with false information and one misdemeanor charge of failure to prevent a catastrophe.

It is alleged that Zielewicz set fire to 520 Hastings St. on the afternoon of Oct. 12, 2020, Cpl. Nathan Birth, a state police fire marshal, stated in court documents. The property was part of the estate of Sandra L. Bair, Zielewicz’s mother, who died in April of that year, according to Birth and other public documents.

“The defendant intentionally started a fire at the property with the intent of collecting insurance for such loss,” the investigator alleged of Zielewicz in a criminal complaint. “He used a fuse or road flare to commit arson,” Birth alleged.

Investigators determined that “through Zielewicz’s employment, membership and recent increased activity in the South Williamsport Fire Department, he would have access to fuses or road flares,” Birth said in an affidavit that was filed this week.

An officer with the fire company said Tuesday night that Zielewicz was a life member of the former First Ward Fire Company in the borough, but had not been active since the three former borough fire companies merged or closed to become one department in 2016. “He is not a member here. He is not affiliated with us at all,” the officer said.

Birth alleges that Zielewicz “knowingly defrauded Nationwide Mutual Insurance by presenting a statement with misleading information,” it was stated in the criminal complaint. The investigator said that by allegedly setting the blaze, Zielewicz put firefighters and other first responders “in danger of death or injury.” Following his arraignment Monday before District Judge Gary Whiteman, Zielewicz was released on $50,000 bail.