One of the best parts about being a writer is the opportunity to follow whatever curiosity you have that could be used in a story.  I got the idea of a  serial arsonist from a real case in California in the 80’s where a fire investigator had become a national expert because of all the fires he managed to solve.  It turned-out he could solve them because—he set all of them!

I wondered what would happen if something like that occurred in my town and the fires kept getting bigger and more deadly and no one could figure out who was guilty?

My main source of information was one of the Minneapolis Fire Dept. fire investigators.  Like the character in Flashover, my friend was female and smart.  She was generous enough to spend several hours with me going through all the details of a fire investigation and giving me other resources also.  For instance, she talked about how difficult it is, physically, to investigate a fire.  Even though it’s “out” the fire is probably still smoldering and giving-off toxic gases.  It’s still hot and dangerous to be climbing around the remains of a house or office that has burned.

She showed me some of the high-tech equipment they use.  When they’re looking for the presence of gas, they used to have dogs trained to smell it.  But the toxic environment of a fire was too hard on them and they died early.  Now, the fire investigators have a small gadget which measures gases at the scene.  It’s a hydrocarbon meter and the one she used was the MultiRae Pro .http://www.raesystems.com/products/multirae-pro The investigator collects a sample of gas in one end of the machine.  It’s passed over a heating element and the machine has a meter that shows the presence of different kinds of gases.  Then, the results can be uploaded to the crime lab for permanent storage or further analysis.

If they find the presence of gasoline, for instance, that’s pretty good evidence that someone started the fire rather than an accident.

The other aspect that’s so fun about this kind of research is that most people are proud of what they do for a job and are happy to talk about it.  That makes it more fascinating for me—and, I hope, for my readers!!

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Arsonists are fascinating criminals!!

I did a lot of research about arsonists for my book, Flashover.  I learned that they have a very different psychological personality makeup from other criminals.  Statistically, they look like other criminals: low education, low skills, low income, male usually, chemical abuse issues, etc.  But in other areas, they look much different.

For one thing, many arsonists are sociopaths.  The simple way to psychologically define a sociopath is to say that they lack a conscience.  As a result, they aren’t able to emotionally relate to other people.  They don’t follow moral or ethical rules because “the rules don’t apply to them.”  They can certainly understand the rules intellectually, but they don’t care.  At the same time, they can fake having a conscience—which makes them dangerous since the rest of us tend to believe them.

To be a successful arsonist, may require some technical skills.  Of course, it’s easy to set a fire in a garage and run, but many arsonists pride themselves on their skills compared to other violent criminals.  For instance, bombs are often used to ignite a fire and that takes a technical understanding beyond the ability of most criminals.

Many arsonists are gutsy and relish the challenge of committing a crime and getting away with it.  For instance, a common way to start a fire is to tape some wooden matches half-way down the side of the cigarette.  The arsonist lights the cigarette, goes into a store, tosses the smoldering cigarette into a pile of highly combustible material, (pillows, potato chips, plastic products), and leaves the scene.  When the cigarette burns down, it ignites the matches which create a flame.  Meanwhile, the arsonist gets a five to ten minute head start to get away.

Usually, arsonists watch the fires they’ve built.  They take pride at their “creations” and get a psychological high by watching and listening to the other spectators comment on the fire.  As a result, many become addicted to this high and set larger fires and even expose themselves to greater risk of capture.  Combine this with a sociopathic personality and you’ve got a dangerous criminal.

Do the police solve these cases?

Rarely.  Unlike the usual crime scene, a fire destroys all the evidence.  There would be very little for a CSI team to analyze.  Maybe that’s why arson is one of the fastest growing crimes in the country.

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