NEWPORT – David A. Clukey, 41, of Garland has been arrested in connection with a suspicious fire at his biological father’s home in Exeter last Saturday.

Clukey, according to State Fire Marshal investigator Stu Jacobs, is charged with Class A arson and Jacobs said that two other people may be involved. He said the investigation into the blaze, which destroyed the home of Urban Clukey on Downing Road, continues and additional arrest warrants will be sought.

Jacobs declined to release Clukey’s motive for allegedly setting the fire or how the fire was started.

After a bail hearing Wednesday morning at Newport District Court, Clukey remained at Penobscot County Jail in Bangor under $2,500 cash or $10,000 surety bail.

Clukey has a long criminal background, according to Penobscot District Attorney Chris Almy, including a conviction for hijacking a pulp truck at gunpoint in Dexter 19 years ago.

At the time of the incident, which occurred on March 1, 1988, Clukey was 21. He was accused of commandeering a truck operated by George Harmon of Sebec when Harmon stopped at a traffic light on Route 7 in downtown Dexter. Brandishing a handgun, Clukey led police on a slow chase south on Route 7, forcing the driver to stop and start several times.

During the chase, Clukey fired several shots, hitting a pickup truck belonging to Dexter police Officer James Emerson, who was off duty but had pulled in front of the fleeing pulp truck to slow the truck down by sandwiching it between his own vehicle and another Dexter officer’s cruiser. When the truck stopped at Dave’s Variety in Corinna, Emerson arrested Clukey at gunpoint, pulling him out of the truck.

Jacobs said Corinna firefighters alerted the State Fire Marshal’s Office after they responded to the Saturday night fire. The blaze destroyed the small, one-room structure. Urban Clukey was away at the time of the fire.

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