NSW bushfires: Cops round up two dozen alleged firestarters

"Freakinoldguy" said
What the fuck is wrong with people?

As firefighters remained on high alert, police revealed 103 of the destructive fires that had lashed Queensland since September were deliberately lit.

Figures obtained by AAP revealed police had dealt with 98 people - 31 adults and 67 juveniles - for deliberately setting fires.

A 16-year-old boy found to have started a fire that razed 14 homes in central Queensland and dealt with under the state's Youth Justice Act.

Two more teens, 14 and 15, were charged with endangering property by fire over a blaze that destroyed two homes and forced hundreds to flee.

More than 120 fires are still being investigated and more people could be charged.

A total of 183 people have been arrested by police in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania for lighting bushfires over the last few months, figures obtained by news agency AAP show.

I know that all of those people aren’t arsonists in a sense, I know a lot of them were doing things like using fireworks or lighting fires to camp or cook food or young children, in fact, that got the benefits of the Young Offenders Act and quite rightly so.

I know all of those people are not people out there trying to kill people or destroy houses and so we need to get that in some perspective.

Still, what it does, what it does show me and the community is that police are well aware that we need to take action against people, whatever that might be, in this time and it is particularly a heightened risk of fire activity and we’ve seen the devastation it causes.

We make no apologies for being so vigilant about that.

"xerxes" said
Though, not all of the 183 charged had truly malicious intent. From the NSW Deputy Police Comissioner:

"Freakinoldguy" said
What the fuck is wrong with people? How could anyone do something like this?

"Strutz" said
It's a good point made here that though many of the fires were human-caused they weren't all necessarily with the intent of doing damage.

I'm not sure if Australia has the equivalent laws like we do here in imposing campfire bans and other banned activities when the conditions warrant it.

"Freakinoldguy" said
Sorry about the double post. But back to the topic at hand. What the fuck is wrong with people? How could anyone do something like this?

Research has shown about 8% of officially recorded vegetation fires were attributed to malicious lighting, and another 22% as suspicious. However, about 40% of officially recorded vegetation fires did not have an assigned cause. When unassigned bushfires were investigated by fire investigators, the majority were found to be maliciously lit.

But official fires are just the tip of the iceberg: the actual number of bushfires in Australia is thought to be about five times that recorded. Virtually none of these unrecorded fires are investigated.

Young men comprise the largest group of people who maliciously light fires. These youth are usually troubled, likely to have absent fathers and little home supervision. They are likely to have experienced child abuse and neglect and associated with an antisocial peer group. Lighting fires may give a feeling of excitement, defiance and power, or it may be an expression of displaced anger. Some offenders have an intellectual disability.

Offenders may make no attempt to extinguish the fire, and give little consideration to the consequences. Some may have no feelings of remorse or fear of punishment. Others may never have intended to create such wide devastation.

Older males who light malicious fires also have a history of social and educational disadvantage, poor family functioning in childhood, low self-esteem, and often a pathological interest in fire. However the older the person gets, the less likely they are to light fires.

So why don’t we talk about arson?

During last week’s east-coast bushfire crisis, a handful of news reports covered people lighting fires. They include a teenager who allegedly lit a Queensland bushfire that razed 14 homes, and a man charged with starting a Sydney fire by letting off fireworks.

Media attention on a fire’s cause is generally scant and the public rarely hears much beyond initial charges being laid. This is in stark contrast to blanket news coverage of the consequences of bushfires.

A staggeringly low apprehension and conviction rate for offenders - less than 1% - is a further barrier to public awareness of the problem. Conviction rarely leads to a substantial punishment.

Fire brigades in most states offer a limited education course for some children who light fires, usually led by volunteers. But there are few targeted treatment programs for those who light bushfires.

"Freakinoldguy" said
What the fuck is wrong with people?

"Freakinoldguy" said
How could anyone do something like this?