A Franklin Township man is facing arson charges after authorities say he set fire to his home days before Christmas.

Police and firefighters were called shortly after 5 p.m. Dec. 23 to a reported house fire in the 100 block of Church Street, Franklin Township. A passerby reported it after seeing heavy smoke.

When officers arrived with members of the Lehighton Fire Department, they saw thick black smoke rising into the air. Second-floor windows facing Church Street appeared to have blown outward. Curtains and pieces of window frame were scattered outside, and glass littered the roadway. Flames and smoke poured from the attic.

Standing outside near a black 2016 Ford Escape parked in the grass was Anil Mehta, 67, who was identified by his New York driver’s license. Mehta told police there were no people or animals inside the home. He said he didn’t know what happened and that he had been downstairs at the time. When asked if he had been upstairs, Mehta said he had not been there in about two months. Asked what was stored in the attic that might have caused a fire, he replied it was only “his wife’s clothing.”

An officer reported smelling gasoline coming from Mehta. Firefighters also said they noticed a gasoline-like odor in the attic.

The fire chief spoke with Mehta and later told police that Mehta said he had not seen any fire inside the home and had not been near it. The chief also observed burns on the backs of Mehta’s hands and singed hair on his head and face. Photographs were taken at the scene. Mehta was treated by Lehighton ambulance personnel and taken to Lehigh Valley Health Network–Cedar Crest Hospital. An officer who accompanied him said the odor of what he believed to be gasoline remained strong at the hospital. Mehta’s clothing was later taken as evidence.

After the fire was extinguished, investigators said they could smell a strong gasoline odor from the street in front of the home. Inside, on the second floor and in the attic, they again reported smelling what they believed to be a flammable liquid.

A state police fire marshal and a fire inspector from the City of Scranton responded with an accelerant-detection dog. The dog alerted in a second-floor front bedroom near what appeared to be a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a plastic container of cotton balls and a candle lying close together on the floor.

The dog also alerted in the attic, on the remains of a blue plastic tub with liquid in the bottom, and near a hole in the attic floor that opened to the second story. Investigators said the alerts indicated a flammable liquid may have been poured there and seeped through the flooring onto the rafters below.

Investigators also reported that ground wires in the basement breaker panel were disconnected. Various items were seized from the home for laboratory analysis.

On Dec. 26, an insurance claim was processed with Geico Insurance Agency LLC for the residence. The policy listed Anil Mehta, Sushma Mehta and S General Store LLC as insured parties. The claim was reported by Siddant Mehta by telephone, according to court papers.

During a recorded interview with a senior special investigator working on behalf of American Family Insurance, Anil Mehta said no one else was in the home at the time of the fire. He said workers from New York who had keys to the residence had last been there two to four days earlier. He maintained he was downstairs in the living room when he was alerted to the fire and could not offer another explanation for how it started.

Mehta is charged with arson, risking catastrophe and insurance fraud.

He is free on $250,000 unsecured bail and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Feb. 25 before District Judge William J. Kissner in Palmerton.