CONNELLSVILLE - The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was still trying to figure out who set seven suspicious fires in this city between October and February when two similar fires were set this weekend.

One burned an apartment building and left six families homeless. The other burned a building containing a hair salon.

That doesn't count a mobile home fire in neighboring South Connellsville early Monday that left another family homeless. The cause of that fire wasn't immediately determined.

Still, police and federal agents are taking care not to jump to the conclusion that one person is responsible for all the fires - or risk stoking his ego if that's the case.

"When the M.O., the method of operation, is very similar, it forces us to examine the possibility that one or two people are responsible," Supervisory Agent Jim Tanda of the ATF office in Pittsburgh said Monday. "There are certainly some consistencies (between this weekend's fires and the earlier seven), but there are some inconsistencies, too. That's why we don't want to go out on a limb and characterize it" as the work of one person.

Authorities declined to reveal specific details of the investigation. But the residents, business people and fire victims of this depressed coal center speak as though one person is to blame.

Tony Pujia has had a self-named hair salon for 16 years. Two years ago, he bought the building where it's located and was 10 days away from moving into an apartment he had built downstairs when somebody set fire to it Sunday.

"Well, what can you do about it?" Pujia said. "If you get up on Sunday morning and have to set a fire to get off, what's wrong with you? If you go and rob somebody or burglarize them, at least you get something out of it - money. But what does somebody get out of this?"

Ben Sherman lives in an apartment house next to another where a fire was reported at 5:55 a.m. Saturday.

Sherman said he's taken in some of the estimated 30 residents left homeless in the fire, and that he and other residents are keeping a sharp eye out at night.

"We walk around all night long, checking both buildings out," Sherman said, adding that residents are "real spooked. Everybody's on the shaky list."

A state police fire marshal called in the ATF after a fire Monday morning left a family of six homeless, said Mike Ghrist, assistant chief of the South Connellsville fire department. Officials haven't figured out exactly how that fire started, but aren't taking any chances in case it's related to the others, Ghrist said.

Connellsville police Chief Stephen Cooper said he contacted the ATF after the fires Saturday and Sunday, though he's careful not to attribute the blazes to one person.

"Even though there are a lot of similarities, there are a lot of divergences, too," Cooper said. "It's too early to say if it's one person ... but it's frustrating to have this many fires and have no arrests."