HIGH POINT, N.C. — A man who captured video of a fire at a Walmart store in High Point also helped police catch the accused arsonist.
Daniel Dailey, 26, is accused of setting fire to the men's department of the Walmart store off South Main Street in High Point on Monday.
Mike Leonard was just running some errands when he heard someone yell 'fire.'
"All the sudden I hear someone yell, 'fire' and about 20 feet away from me there’s all this smoke coming from the men’s department."
So Leonard rushed over to see what was happening.
"I ran over to see what I could do, everyone was dispersing trying to get fire extinguishers so I thought well maybe I could document it and capture the perpetrator."
Leonard helped evacuate everyone. He said there were 100 or so people inside at the time of the fire.
"The flames were very fast and it did not take long for that thing to grow."
Once everyone was outside in the Walmart parking lot, the chaos continued. Leonard says a Walmart employee recognized the man who is accused of setting the fire.
"As soon as we got outside one of the workers tugged me and said I think that’s the guy and I said are you sure?"
Leonard turned to High Point Police Officers who had just arrived.
"High Point Police rolled up and one of the officers stepped out and I was like 'they’re saying it’s that guy,' and he wasn’t running he was being kind of clever and just blending in with the crowd acting like he was leaving too."
Police chased down Dailey and arrested him.
"It was very interesting that officer was very fast."
He's been charged with Arson and Larceny.
"As soon as I approached the fire you could tell, oh this is deliberate because it was the socks that were on fire that didn’t make any sense," Leonard said.
WFMY News 2 made several attempts to contact Walmart to find out when the store will be reopening. The calls went unanswered. We will update you as soon as we have that information.