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Probably hammering metal on metal (hammer and stake) created small and hot metal splinters – like sparks, but not glowing red – and this was enough to start the fire.

You often see road signs in dry states advising motorists pulling trailers to double check their chains to make sure they don't cause sparks that start roadside wildfires.

It's more about the chains dragging and getting super hot. You won't be creating sparks on a non-paved surface. Vegetation won't be growing on a paved surface.

that's not the 'fishy af' part. what's a bit fishy is the comedy of errors afterwards. only slightly though. it's entirely plausible. had he also tried unsuccessfully to urinate on the fire, then maybe i'd be doubtful.

In all of the zillion times that the same stuff happened without the accompanying errors you never heard about it.

If you look at major aviation or industrial disasters a great many of of them involve two or more unlikely to fail components failing at once. It's not reasonable to look at it after the fact and say "look, a coverup! those two systems wouldn't likely have failed at once!"

I have a few experiences with fires. What happens is panic causes people to repeatedly under escalate.