Motivated Arson Incidents Essay

By the time John Orr was convicted of four counts of murder for the South Pasadena hardware store fire, he had already served six years in prison. Orr was convicted of three counts of arson. At the end, Orr was convicted using his very own signature homemade incendiary device. Fellow firefighters began suspecting that the arsonist was one of their own after conference of arson investigators. During the conference period, an oddly large amount of fire broke out. During that time fires broke out in fabric shops, drugstores, and craft shops. At a craft shop in Bakersfield, California a fire broke out in a display of dried flowers. At the scene, investigators found charred remnants of what appeared a simple incendiary device — a filter-tipped cigarette and matches, held together with a rubber band. One of the devices was partially wrapped in yellow paper (Bovsun, 2014). Though many of the investigator believe this was the work of an expert attending the arson conference, it could not be proven.

Among the various types of forensic/criminalist disciplines, this research intends to convey knowledge on one of the many varied specialties of forensic analysis known as arson, fire and explosives. The forensic investigation of arson, fire and explosives is a very collaborated approach. “Arson investigators have two immediate objectives: (1) to determine exactly where, at the scene, the fire began and (2) what caused the fire to ignite. Explosives investigators need to know the same fundamental information as they probe the destruction of buildings, airplanes, and cars” (Harmon, 2008:6). First, each forensic application must be defined to gain a greater understanding of the discipline as a whole. “Arson is the willful and malicious burning of any property for an improper or illegal purpose. By definition, it’s intentional” (J. Ford, 2014:7). In order to produce a fire three ingredients must be present at the same times, which are oxygen, fuel and heat. According to the Haynes (2015:1) “U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated 1,298,000 fires in 2014. Also, “during 2007-2011, an estimated 282,600 intentional fires were reported to U.S. fire departments each year, with associated annual losses of 420 civilian deaths, 1,360 civilian injuries, and $1.3 billion in direct property damage”. In the addition to arson and fire, explosives, have recently became one of the most tragic and alarming events.

I believe that John Orr does fit the profile of an arsonist in many ways, and not in other ways. John Orr was a blue-collar arson investigator, he also attended investigator conventions and investigated one of his own fires; he kept the “mask of sanity” for quite some time. Orr burned retail stores, specifically in sections where there was foam, he seemed comfortable with this type of location and comfortable with the everyday items he used to start the fires; cigarettes, matches, yellow paper, and rubber bands. John Orr wrote a manifest about how he would get sexually excited at fires, becoming erected and even masturbating to the flames as they surrounded him. Many arsonists keep mementos of their fires, Orr videoed before and after shots

This provides insight into how frequently fires occurred, and furthermore provides information as to how they happened, as in the 18th century, due to the lack of cleanliness would result in buildup of old grease and arbitrary sparks in combination to this could cause enormous fires. This means that fires could easily be caused by what some may refer to as accidental incidents, variables for these types of situations are often those that are not under one's

On August 30, 1979 there was a fire that killed two children and one adult at their residence. Investigators concluded that the fire was an arson. They concluded this because of the heavy alligator charring on the floor that was misinterpreted as arson. The investigators felt this was due to a pool of Stoddard solvent, a liquid flammable substance, used to start the fire. In reality these markings were due to radiation effect from the fire, not arson. On March 26, 1980 Louis DiNicola was charged with arson and three counts of murder. Louis spent four years in prison before being on bail while awaiting retrial. He was granted a new trial from his appeal of this conviction. The basis for the retrial was that evidence from the original

On Monday, February 22, 2016, Mark Heleker, a high school principle's cars were broken into and house burnt to the ground. The fire also ruined his vehicles. The family was able to get themselves and their pets out of the house without being injured.

In the Taylor case, there was a 19-year-old boy name Louis Taylor and was convicted of burning down a hotel and killing 29 lives. Taylor was found with several matches in his pocket and this lead to the fire investigators to believe that they had enough evidence to accused him for setting up the fire. Later on, they found out it was an accidental flashover fire and not him who lighted up the fire. To prevent this in the future is to look closer to the fire patterns and make sure that evidence is all there and not just accused people for their

Fine, Denny thought. He gave the finger to the darkness outside. And yeah, whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing, and when it came to remote-ignition devices, like this was, firemen knew exactly what they were doing. Denny sighed and lifted the toy car from behind the stereo. Whoever did this not only got into his apartment—they must’ve been watching him—but they triggered the device just before he got home. Which meant they didn’t want to burn the entire apartment building down, for certainly someone who did would’ve used more combustible material, say a trash container, more accelerant and a less detectible method of ignition. No, whoever did this meant it as a

The police got in contact with the manufactures of the black bag (a piece was left unscathed at one of the scenes) who then said there were only two stores in the Washington D.C area who purchased them. The police individualized each bag with an alpha numeric thermal chip that would survive future fires. A pair of military dress pants were identified by a search dog with having gasoline one them. They were discarded at one of the fire scenes. The skin cells from the pants matched those of the wick and the hair found on the incendiary device. Fire investigators contacted the Navel yard and spoke with investigators to try to find leads. It turns out they were also searching for a serial arsonist who was setting fires to cars in the military parking lot. A surveillance tape showed Sweatt leaving the scene in his car. Police were able to track down Sweatt through his license plate. Sweatt was questioned by police, providing a DNA sample of his own. When Thomas Sweatt learned about the other DNA evidence the police had against him, he confessed to the fires some dating back 25 years

In the Article “Firefighters' Flame-Throwing Toolkits Keep Wildfires in Check” written by Chadwick Matlin it states “... backburning--in which professionals set brush alight before a wildfire does…”(Matlin). Back burning it best because it prevent wildfire and can since firefighter are starting the fire they can control the fire. This is also known as control burning. The use gelled gasoline(napalm) and drop it from an helicopter, ping pong ball sized sphere that then shoot out small amount of sparks that then start fire if the are has dry grass or dead wood, and the other thing they use is called the Green Dragon. It shoots flaming balls up to two hundred twenty-five feet.

According to Alfred Manes, the majority of belongings insurance crimes involve arson.[37] One reason for this is that any evidence that a hearth changed into started by arson is regularly destroyed via the hearth itself. According to the USA Fire Administration, in the United States there have been approximately 31,000 fires as a result of arson in 2006, ensuing in losses of $755 million.[38] For example, the Moulin Rouge Hotel in Las Vegas was struck by way of arson twice within six

A third house to the south side of the fire had some minor cosmetic damage to the exposed side. The paint on the side of the house started to bubbling, plastic railing on the deck was melted, and vinyl on a window was melted. Nevada County Sherriff Deputy forced entry into this house causing extensive damage to the front door of house searching for

On the 4th and 8th of the month, we had two separate incidents of arson. Three or four juveniles

The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) published by the FBI gives a little better look of the profile of an arsonist, though not much. Only those fires that are determined to be deliberately set are included in the UCR, suspicious fires are not. In 2009, Motor vehicles and other mobile property accounted for 28.4% of arsons, 27.1% were arsons that involved crops, timber, fences and other such types of property, and the remaining 44.5% of arsons were those involving structures – residential, commercial and public.

Arson comes in many forms such as juveniles vandalizing property, businesses trying to collect insurance money, and murderers covering up their crimes are just a few of the examples arson investigators deal