TACOMA, Wa. – Police in Tacoma, Washington have arrested a man they say doused a truck with gasoline and lit it on fire.
Three people were inside at the time and security footage shows them escaping the flames.
10-foot flames erupted out of the side of Michael Collier’s work truck.
He and his two co-workers were inside fearing for their lives.
“We’re going to be stuck in here and all three of us are going to die,” said Collier.
“I was freaked out. I thought it was going to blow up,” said Terry Klein, who was also inside the burning car.
The BNSF railway crew stopped for gas at the Union 76 station on Puyallup Avenue in Tacoma Tuesday morning.
The driver began filling up the truck - then she sat back down.
Tacoma police say seconds later a man walked over, pulled out the gas nozzle and set their truck on fire.
“I heard something on the side. I looked over and saw the top of somebody’s head. He was looking down and all of a sudden, just a couple seconds, engulfed in flames,” said Collier.
Collier and his co-workers narrowly escaped.
Flames slightly burned the driver’s face and neck, and singed her hair.
A person inside the gas station rushed out and extinguished the fire, but the arsonist had already taken off.
“I looked down the street and that guy was way down there, he was still running,” said Collier.
BNSF police began scouring the area searching for the suspect.
Court documents say more than 12 hours later, agents spotted 54-year-old Greg James Ketzenberg walking toward a homeless shelter on Puyallup Avenue -- and they arrested him.
When agents told Ketzenberg he looked like the man who set the fire, he replied, “yes.”
He’s been charged with arson and three counts of attempted murder.
“I thought I was going to be burned to death,” said Klein.
Deputies said Ketzenberg refused to appear in court for his arraignment Tuesday.
He is scheduled to face a judge on Thursday.