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Comment by droopyEyelids | Hacker News Reader

Firefighter arson is a relatively well known phenomenon.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fires-set-by-firefigh...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighter_arson

I'm curious, how do they actually figure out who is behind a forest fire? Or even suspect that it was a criminal act in the first place. Finding who is behind a burnt house is one thing, but a whole forest is a lot of terrain to cover for proof!

I’ve always wondered, even in criminal cases, even here in France. Do they pin it on someone? Crime is prone to be pinned onto someone, it calms the populations, and it doesn’t matter whether he did it because he’s in jail, so of course he’s angry.

I personally know someone whose lawyer asked him for a large sum in cash in the 7 minutes before a trial, in the antichamber of the court.

They don't need to cover the whole forest, usually the fire is first seen when still small. But it's a lot of work, I don't know how often they are successful:

https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pms412...

(I also know that forensic fire investigation for house fires/criminal investigations is basically a made up art with extremely unreliable results - not sure how much that overlaps with wildfire investigations).

You don't. Just grab some shlub and do some whitch doctor bullshit to convict them.

just play nice cop for an hour and people with that profile will confess JFK killing

Oh my goodness, that FBI behavioural profile on the second link. "We're looking for a suspect who's depressed... alcoholic... and HOMOSEXUAL"

> Oh my goodness, that FBI behavioural profile on the second link. "We're looking for a suspect who's depressed... alcoholic... and HOMOSEXUAL"

I count a total of 14 traits that they looked at[1]. Why is that one, and only that one, significant in your opinion?

[1] Including the trait of being white. And male.

"White male, age 17–25" is an entire trait. "Homosexual" is a *part* of a trait: "Alcoholism, childhood hyperactivity, homosexuality, depression, borderline personality disorder, and suicidal tendencies". It's significant because of the other descriptors it's grouped with in that trait. It would be weird to have "homosexual" as a trait on its own, but it's obviously weird to group it with these other descriptors in a single trait.

doesnt that sound like looking for [generic loser] to pin down and move onto other cases?

This report [1] is specific to "Firefighter Arson", so they're looking for things to screen for during hiring for firefighters. The section you'll be interested in is on page 20: "PREVENTION OF FIREFIGHTER ARSON". They list some actions departments have taken: background checks for arson; requiring an affidavit the applicant hasn't conducted arson; "scared straight" lectures on the consequences of being jailed; and screening firefighters with a questionnaire.

But yeah, the profiling section some sound like a way to pathologize arson. I found the motivation section and case studies more interesting. The only corroboration from the case studies is for the age; there's no evidence included for the personality traits.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190811142354/https://www.usfa....

Not much, I just thought they had taken that one out of DSM-5

That, but organized by a whole volunteer department in this case...

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