Black Forest man arrested in arson at home

A Black Forest man was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of arson, accused of burning down his former home in July rather than allowing it to be taken by the bank after it had gone into foreclosure.
Mark Rance, 48, is being held in the El Paso County jail on $75,000 bond.
The next door neighbor, Kelvin Kaercher, was up late watching television around 4 a.m. on July 22 when he said he heard a couple of muffled explosions and saw flames shooting from the home and garage at 13645 Wildoak Drive. Fire crews fought the blaze for several hours but were unable to save the house.
No body was found in the home and investigators tried to contact Rance to determine if he was in the home when the fire started.
“He has surfaced,” Lt. Lari Sevene, spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, said when they found Rance a few days after the fire.
According to county property records, Rance bought the home in 1990 for $171,000, refinancing it through JP Morgan Chase in 2004. Chase sought foreclosure on the loan in January after Rance defaulted, and the bank took possession of the home June 17. It is unknown if Rance had been evicted.
Online real estate sites such as zillow.com estimate the home and property was worth upwards of $400,000 before the fire.
Neighbors said Rance worked in the computer software industry before he was laid off and tried to make a go as a freelancer.
Sevene said Rance was arrested at 8255 Forest Heights Circle, in Black Forest, and is being charged with first-degree arson.
Investigators considered the fire “suspicious,” but Sevene did not say what evidence led investigators to suspect Rance set the fire.
At the outset of the investigation, Sevene said fire investigators must wait on lab results that reveal whether accelerants were used to spread the fire. 
“Basically, there was a lot of testing they did at the scene that led them to believe they had probable cause,” she said.