Arson Is a Seirous Problem in the United States
Arson is a serious problem in the United States, being the number one cause of all fires, the number two cause of fire death and the cause of over one billion dollars of damage every year. Webster defines arson as “ The crime of maliciously burning somebody else’s building or property or of burning one’s own to get insurance money.” Arson is thought of as an insurance concern, an invisible “paper lose” by the general populace, but for the firefighters who have been injured or killed responding to set fires and the hundreds of civilians killed each year in incendiary or suspicious building fires, arson looms as a significant issue that is anything but invisible. Arson is the malicious or fraudulent burning of property. A fire I a fireplace is a constructive fire, it is built to provide warmth and comfort. However a fire set in a pile of leaves by a group of children is a malicious fire, as is a fire set by a business owner in the back of his store to collect on an insurance policy. While many people think of arson only in terms of fires involving large property or life loss, a small set fire is equally an act of arson. The United States has one of the highest fire death rates in the industrialized world at 14.5deaths per million population. In 2000 4,045 Americans lost their life to fire, and 102 firefighters were killed in duty related incidents. 110,000 incidents of arson were reported to law enforcements in the United States in 1997. That is 41 reported arsons for every 100,000 United States residents. Arson rates were highest in cities (87 per 100,000) and lowest in rural areas (18 per 100,000). The average reported financial loss in arsons reported in 1997 was $11,300. 50% of arson occurs outdoors, 30% in structures, and 20% in vehicles. In the year 2000 an estimated 75,000 arson fires occurred, which accounted for 14.8% of all structural fires, amounting to 1.3 billion dollars in property damage which represents 15.7% of all structure