A patient at the Clarion Psychiatric Center confessed to setting a fire that burned down her daughter’s rental home in Slippery Rock Township last month, authorities said.

The suspect, Jennifer Brown, 42, of Clearfield Township later told her story to police investigators.

“She was upset about where her daughter was living,” said state police fire marshal Trooper Dwayne Baird. “She thought the living conditions were deplorable and wanted her daughter out of there.”

So, authorities suspect that Brown on Feb. 13 set the small house at 137 Etna Road on fire.

“She said she started it with a lighter,” Baird said. “She lit a bedsheet that was on the floor.”

Investigators believe Brown then left the house, walking about one half mile to visit a friend of her daughter’s on Route 173.

Christine Lipke, Brown’s daughter, and her two young children were not at home and no one was injured in the fire.

Police arrested Brown on Tuesday and charged her with arson, causing or risking a catastrophe and criminal mischief. She was arraigned and placed in the Butler County Prison on $10,000 bail.

A neighbor was the first to report the fire about 9 a.m. The house was ablaze by the time Slippery Rock volunteer firefighters got there.

There was little left of the wood-frame structure when it was eventually extinguished, said Chief Dave Taggart of the Slippery Rock Volunteer Fire Company.

The house, owned by Chad Snow, had about $180,000 in damage. Authorities believed he had insurance. Lipke did not have renter’s insurance.

Firefighters did not find anyone at the house when they arrived. They later learned that Lipke had gone to work earlier that morning.

Her children, a daughter and son, were at school and at a babysitter’s house, respectively.

Brown, who was visiting Lipke for a night or two, was reportedly at a friend’s house.

Taggart and Baird both admitted their initial instincts told them the fire seemed suspicious.

“Yeah,” Baird said, “I felt there were some unanswered questions from the get-go.”

On Friday, the Clarion Psychiatric Center contacted police. One of their patients, the defendant, had made a troubling admission.

Brown, who lives at the Ridgeview Boarding Home, had earlier voluntarily committed herself to the psychiatric facility, according to police.

Baird said he interviewed Brown at the barracks in Butler Township.

“She told me, ‘This is what happened,’” the trooper said.

During the alleged confession, Brown acknowledged that she deliberately started the fire in a back bedroom.

A preliminary hearing is set for 2 p.m. March 12 at the office of District Judge Tim Shaffer in Slippery Rock.