SLIPPERY ROCK — A western New York teenager Wednesday was ordered to stand trial on charges he broke into a vacant house in Slippery Rock Township last week and later set it on fire.

But the news only got worse for Jonathan H. Young, 19, of Jamestown.

Police in his hometown also announced Wednesday that they have charged Young with setting 12 fires last month in and around Jamestown.

The fires in New York’s Chautauqua County were deliberately set between March 2 and 25, mostly at abandoned or condemned homes and apartments, according to Jamestown police.

The Post-Journal newspaper in Jamestown in a report Wednesday identified Young as a student at Jamestown Community College, where he is a member of the school’s theater group, the “Uncommoners.”

Pennsylvania State Police, however, did not know Young’s identity until Tuesday, said Trooper Christopher Balcik.

When police arrested him March 28, only minutes after the intentional fire at the vacant home owned by Frank and Betty Davis on Davis Lane near Route 8, he had no identification.

He gave a bogus name, too, police said, leading investigators to charge him as “John Doe.” He is being held in the Butler County Prison on $75,000 bail.

Young was well-mannered and polite at his preliminary hearing Wednesday afternoon before District Judge Bill O’Donnell in Slippery Rock.

Balcik testified at the hearing that the defendant “confessed” to setting the fire, during a second interview with police Tuesday.

The fire badly damaged the two-story house. No one was injured but a Harrisville volunteer firefighter had to be treated for chest pains while battling the blaze.

Betty Davis told the Butler Eagle that the house had been vacant for “many years.” Frank Davis had most recently converted the home into a woodworking shop.

He said he lost thousands of dollars worth of tools in the blaze.

A neighbor who lives in a rental home on the Davis’ 100-acre farm called 911 about 8:15 a.m. to report the fire.

She told police that just before the fire, Balcik testified, she had seen an unknown man — wearing a back pack and carrying an American flag on a stick — walking near the house.

“He was seen pulling on the door of the structure,” Balcik said in recounting what the neighbor told him, “and moments later she sees fire coming from the house.”

Young matched the neighbor’s description of the man she saw. But on cross-examination by the defendant’s attorney, public defender Maura Palumbi, the trooper conceded there was no facial description given.

Police stopped and questioned Young outside the Wieners Gone Wild hot dog shop on Route 8, before he was handcuffed and taken to the state police barracks in Butler Township for his first interview.

Investigators said they found incriminating evidence in the man’s back pack, including two cigarette lighters, a hammer, screwdriver and a wrench.

Balcik testified that it was later determined that the suspect had stolen the hammer and screwdriver from the home.

He also said that after Young was detained, police noticed sawdust in the treads of his shoes. Police believe that sawdust came from Davis’ makeshift wood shop.

But the suspect provided little information during his initial interview with police.

He claimed that he had no home and “bounces around from place to place scavenging for what he needs to survive,” according to court documents.

He told investigators that at the time of the fire he was walking on his way to the hot dog shop after spending the night in the woods. He said that he was planning to walk to Virginia.

Balcik admitted that he wasn’t buying that story. But he didn’t rule out that the defendant had walked from New York to Pennsylvania.

Young’s uncooperative attitude apparently changed when he was re-interviewed Tuesday.

He confessed to setting the fire,” Balcik testified, “using his orange lighter.”

But the defendant refused to answer one question: why did he do it?

“We don’t know his motive,” Balcik said following the hearing.

O’Donnell following testimony ordered Young held for court on a list of charges including arson, burglary and theft.

Balcik acknowledged he has been in contact with Jamestown police investigating the rash of arsons there for which Young is charged. He declined to elaborate.

A telephone call to Jamestown police was not returned Wednesday afternoon.