Fire!
"California Firefighter Is Accused of Starting 5 Fires in Wine Country"
I have been known to give the New York Times some grief now and then, but it really is considerably better than almost all newspapers. For example, here’s an NYT news story:
California Firefighter Is Accused of Starting 5 Fires in Wine Country
By Heather Knight
Reporting from San Francisco
Sept. 20, 2024
A California firefighter was arrested Friday morning after allegedly setting five fires in wine country during what has already been a bad year for wildfires in the state.
Robert Hernandez, a 38-year-old fire apparatus engineer with Cal Fire, the state’s main firefighting agency, was arrested on suspicion of setting fires on forest land near the Northern California towns of Geyserville, Healdsburg and Windsor between Aug. 15 and Sept. 14.
At this point, I expected the story to go into climate change or whatever, and I was about to jump in with: Actually, firemen who are arsonists on the side are not all that uncommon…
But then the NYT beat me to it:
A 2016 report by the National Volunteer Fire Council determined, based on media accounts, that more than 100 firefighters in the United States were arrested each year on arson charges. The report said that they represented a tiny percentage of the nation’s firefighters, and that motives varied, from those who wanted to be a hero by putting out their own blazes to others who wanted more firefighting action or suffered from psychological disorders.
Cases of “firefighter arson” have occurred for centuries, the fire council said.
This is likely the kind of thing that many local beat reporters know from covering the police and fire departments. But the NYT occasionally gives its journalists time and space to go look up a scientific-sounding articulation for newspaperman wisdom.
It’s hardly impossible that we evolved to find our hearth fire interesting so that we would pay attention to tending it and not let it go out through inattention. So, it wouldn’t be surprising if some kids’ Fire Interest setting is too high.
One theory I’ve heard is that a lot of firemen were Beavis-like firebugs as boys.
If so, the great majority of firemen who were firebugs sublimate their childhood pyromania into a constructive career or volunteer hobby.
But a fraction slip up.
By the way: I’m doing book tour appearances in Chicago next week to promote my anthology Noticing: dinner on Thursday evening September 26th downtown and a speaking event on Friday night September 27th on Chicago’s north lakefront. See Passage Press’s website for tickets.
> more than 100 firefighters in the United States were arrested each year on arson charges
While I knew this was a thing, if I had to guess before reading this article, I probably would have said it was a dozen or so per year. That it's in the triple digits is quite disturbing.
As an aside, this is why Richard Jewell was incorrectly pegged as the suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing; he was a loser who did something heroic, so the authorities and media rushed to judgement. Sadly for everyone in this case, Jewell was a legitimate hero in this instance. Imagine having your life ruined at 33; truly no good deed goes unpunished.
The FBI should be studying what personality quirks and histories to screen for and what triggering events get them started. Maybe someone has, and they're too close to what makes a good fireman. Or as Tolstoy wrote, "each pyro is a pyro in his own way."