Understanding Arson and Its Potentially Lethal Consequences

However, there’s also arson, which causes plenty of fires. Arson of property can get you up to three years in state prison in California, and you will receive a similar sentence in most other states.

You may wonder why arson happens, though. We’ll talk about it in detail now.

Pyromaniacs Cause Fires

If you see a campfire burning, it might hold an eerie fascination. There’s something very primal about it.
Humans have long feared fire, but we have also used it. We know that if we stick a hand out, then it can burn us and cause us pain. We also know, though, that if we harness its power, it can cook our food. It can heat our homes. We can use it to make tools and weapons.

Many humans feel a pull when they see fire. They might want to get closer and hold their hands out to it to feel its warmth. Some humans take their fire fascination further, though.

They might become pyromaniacs, or individuals who have an unhealthy fire obsession. Such individuals can hardly help themselves when they see a fire. They must approach it and watch it. They must study it.

A time might come for some of these individuals when they feel they must cross the line from looking at fires if they happen to see one to creating them. Maybe that means just starting a harmless campfire in the woods. It could mean torching a building, though.

Many pyromaniacs talk about how they have a strange compulsion to touch fire to a building to watch it burn. They may even stand there and observe the flames even when the police and the fire department come, though it can mean their capture and imprisonment.

 
If someone becomes a pyromaniac and an arsonist, then they may need both jail time and intense therapy. If they get out after serving their sentence, then hopefully, they will learn that they can’t start fires, even if they have a strange love of the flames.

Some Join Fire Departments

Some arsonists become firefighters. It sounds odd, but it makes a certain kind of twisted sense. If you love fire and enjoy being around it, then if you become a firefighter, you will encounter it often.

 
These firefighters might start fires in their downtime if they think they can get away with it, and they also fight fires as their occupation. It’s a bit perverse to think about, but it does happen.

If it does, then often, someone catches the firebug eventually. Arsonists often get careless. With so many traffic cameras and store cameras in existence now, video footage that shows an arsonist’s face often appears if they keep torching buildings in the same city or specific area.

Arson Used as Intimidation

That’s not the only time you’ll see an arsonist at work, though. You may also have someone who uses arson to intimidate someone else.

 
If that happens, maybe it’s part of organized crime. Protection rackets still sometimes exist. You might have a mob figure or their foot soldiers approach a store owner and ask them if they’ll pay protection money. If the store owner turns them down, or threatens to go to the cops, the mob might torch the store as payback.

 
You might also have a situation where someone uses fire because they want someone to leave the neighborhood. Virtually no neighborhoods still have official color lines. However, in some neighborhoods, or even cities, there’s still sections that have a single ethnicity or racial makeup, and the residents want to keep it that way.

 
If someone moves in who the locals don’t want as a neighbor, they may use arson to try to chase that person or family away. It’s frightening to think that such a thing could still happen, but it can in certain areas or cities.

Arson Used as a Tool of Revenge

Some people use arson to get revenge. A person may have a vendetta against someone else. They might try to get revenge in many ways, but arson always remains a possibility.

 
If that happens, there’s seldom any way to prove the person who you suspect committed the crime unless you have physical evidence that will hold up in court. Maybe you can accuse a neighbor if you’ve argued with them, but if you don’t have a video or pictures showing them pouring the accelerant on your house and striking a match, you probably can’t bring any charges against them.

What Happens if Someone Becomes an Arsonist

If someone uses arson as a tool, then that’s very dangerous, no matter their reason. Fire can burn a home to cinders in a few minutes in the right conditions. Any time you have the fire triangle of heat, fuel, and oxygen, the fire will continue burning. To stop it, you must remove one of those elements.

If someone becomes an arsonist, then they might get some serious jail time if they burn a house to the ground with nobody inside. If they accidentally burn a home down with people in it, though, they may face manslaughter or depraved indifference charges.

Such charges can mean decades behind bars. That might seem harsh, but if someone intentionally burned down a building or set it alight, and that cost a human life or multiple lives, then the justice system should try to balance the scales.

Arson doesn’t happen often. When it does, it’s frequently an ugly business. Whether there’s some nefarious purpose behind it or you just have a person who likes to watch fires and get close to them, you must watch out for this kind of behavior and report it to the authorities if you ever see it.