ArsonCriminal LawVolunteersYou Can't Make This Stuff Up
Georgia Firefighter Suspected in Over 20 Arson Fires
A volunteer firefighter in Lafayette, Georgia has been arrested and charged with one count of arson. However, Marvin Chase, 32, is a suspect in over 20 fires and is being referred to as a serial arsonist. According to one news report he admitted to setting over 30 different vacant structure fires.
The USFA produced a special report on volunteer arson that has some excellent information – particularly about the profile of volunteers who set fires. Click here. Definitely worth reading.
Why must media insist calling these arsonists that are volunteer firefighters, fulltime employees in some other profession, simply firefighters. It would appear by reading the headlines that a professional firefighter has turned arsonist. In this case, this guy worked for the city water district. In a lot of these cases these suspects have real full time jobs doing other things; however, since they are on the volunteer department, they are seen as a “firefighter”. That just makes them a predator feeding off of the department and the public, they are not a firefighter. This demeans the true professionals in our field.
Good point Chief! This guy was a full time city worker – but the headline focuses on the firefighter aspect.
Its pretty clear we have some work to do to clean up our image – and it has to start with acknolwedging we have a problem. The FBI profile team as well as a team from South Carolina paint a strikingly similar picture.
My database is showing that the arson problem is clearly a volunteer issue by over a 20 to 1 ratio. Most of the career firefighters in the database are charged with setting their own property on fire for profit, while most of the volunteers set someone else’s property on fire so they can put it out.
In addition, all of the career cases involve a single perpetrator whereas over half of the volunteer cases involve conspiracies among several firefighters.
My numbers are still relatively low (about 200 cases) but it definitely paints a sad picture.