LAND O' LAKES, Fla.- William Bagley spent his Fourth of July house sitting for friends on vacation when Wednesday night he suddenly smelled smoke filling the home.
"I opened the door and it was just a wall of fire," described Bagley. "Just literally flames from the top to the bottom."
The fire apparently started when someone decided to pull a prank placing a firework on the front doorstep.
"Leaned it right up against the door and then lit it and it just started a fire right up the door," says Bagley pointing out $5,000 in damage to the front of his friend's home.
The resulting flames spread to the home's attic. Bagley feels fortunate he wasn't injured or even worse.
"That kind of heat, you can see where it warped the metal on the door. It would have been third degree burns.
The same thing happened down the block where the crime in the second case was caught on a home video surveillance camera.
Two white males in their teens to 20's can be seen lighting fireworks at the front door, then ringing the doorbell before running off and driving away.
"It looks like they intended someone to open the door and get a face full of fire with it," says Bagley.
Arson investigators are aggressively searching for those responsible.
"To me this is not a prank. To me this is extremely dangerous," said Pasco Fire Investigator Joe Valente. "Each of these crimes are an arson of the first degree."
Bagley says had he not been house sitting his friend's home it would likely be gone and their family pets, dead.
"I think they belong in jail, plain and simple. Not kiddy jail, adult full on go to jail."
Anyone with information on what happened is asked to contact the Pasco County Sheriff Office or a special fire investigations line at 1-877-NO-ARSON.
WTSP