Arson
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Arsonists redirects here. For the Bushwick, Brooklyn rap group, see: Arsonists (rap group).
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Arson, called fireraising in Scots law, is the crime of setting a fire for an unlawful or improper purpose. The criminal damage of property in English law has been consolidated into a single offence in the Criminal Damage Act 1971 although the use of the word has been retained.
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[edit] Motivation
Arsonists' motives vary.
Arson for profit often involves a false or fraudulent insurance claim in an attempt to recoup business losses by destroying property. These fires can be extremely large when the insured property is significant. Many commercial and vehicle arsons are profit-motivated.
Vandalism is frequently behind arsons perpetrated by juvenile fire setters. Vandalism through fire can occur in vacant or abandoned buildings. Cities often regulate or encourage owners to secure vacant buildings. Fire departments aggressively attack fires in abandoned buildings out of concern transient or homeless people may be dwelling inside.
Domestic violence sometimes involves arson. Victims’ property is often damaged or destroyed, compromising physical safety and sometimes causing personal injury. Revenge motivation can generate dangerous fires, as a fire setter’s acts of rage contributes to the conflagration.
A number of fire setters are diagnosed with mental illnesses. Schizophrenia is sometimes observed in arsonists. Pyromania, a DSM Axis I diagnosis is uncommon, but can drive serial arsonists to set many dangerous fires. Some arsonists set fires that allow them to appear as heroes, rescuing endangered people or extinguishing the fire themselves.
Man-made forest fires are frequent in the summers of the Galicia region of Spain. Several causes are proposed beyond mental illness or recklessness, including the change of commonal property to government-owned forests, sales of cheap burnt wood, envies against neighbours, intention to sale the land for urban development, disgruntled former firefighters, and distraction of the police by drug smugglers.
Arson may also be used to further political goals. For example, many of the acts of direct action conducted in the name of the Earth Liberation Front have been acts of arson, with the intention of causing mass economic damage to environmentally destructive organisations.
Conversely, accusations of arson may instead be used for political ends. Famously, the parliament building of the German Empire became a target of arson in the 1933 Reichstag fire. Although the circumstances of this deliberate act remain unclear, the event gave the Nazi party leeway to introduce the Reichstag Fire Decree, considered to be one of the key steps leading to the creation of a single-party Nazi state.
One of the most infamous examples of alleged arson was that of Nero and the Great Fire of Rome, which erupted on the night July 18 to July 19, 64 at the southeastern end of the Circus Maximus in shops selling inflammable goods and burnt for reportedly nine days.
[edit] Arson investigation
A forensic science, fire investigation seeks to determine a fire’s origin and cause. During a fire investigation, indicators of an incendiary fire can help guide the investigator. The presence of an accelerant or ignitable liquid such as a petroleum distillate where it should not be can indicate an incendiary fire or arson. Specially trained dogs, known as accelerant detection canines, help investigators pinpoint areas to examine. Areas suspected to contain ignitable liquids can be collected by investigators and sent to forensic laboratories to be examined by instruments using Gas-liquid chromatography and Mass spectrometry. These instruments can detect and display the chemical composition of materials and inform an investigator whether the sample contains an accelerant.
[edit] Arson in fiction
The movie Backdraft centers on the relationships of firefighters confronting a series of arson fires.
The HBO original movie Point of Origin, which is based on a book by John Orr, a former fire investigator and convicted serial arsonist, tells the true story of an arson investigator (Ray Liotta) searching for the perpetrator of a string of deadly fires in 1980s California. The films presents the methods the arsonist uses to start the fires The film makes use of backward trick photography to show the 'Point of Origin' of every fire that the arsonist started.
In the CBS TV show NUMB3RS, a C.S.I. investigation of an arson-related fire at an SUV dealership and other buildings involves finding a college-age arsonist and who persuaded him to do it. This episode also featured Bill Nye as a special guest.
The British TV drama series London's Burning, based on the activities of the London Fire Brigade, also featured cases of arson during its run.
In A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, Count Olaf is an actor/arsonist who is speculated by some to be the one who started the Baudelaire fire.
Much of the first season of Six Feet Under deals with a case of arson.
