Post by Shy Ted
Or so it seems. The media repeatedly pushes false narratives and ignores the ignition – arsonists. For the most part. Many will have done fire training, the triad being fuel, oxygen and climate change, sorry, ignition. Remove one part, no fire.
I worked in forensic psychiatry a but, maybe a year in total, several different places, just one of the plebs. It’s boring. The Hannibal Lecters are incredibly rare, the offenders are mostly very dull characters but have committed astonishing crimes. When the forensic psychiatrist interviews an inpatient, a nurse will sit in attendance but rarely participate. If the crime was noteworthy there is no shortage of volunteers, hoping for a little insight into the mental state of the offender at the time. Nobody volunteers for a dull interview so I, sometimes, was volunteered. Most arsonists are quite low intelligence. An “average” interview might go –
Can you tell me why you’re in hospital?
I burnt down a building.
Why?
I like fire.
Is that a good or a bad thing to do?
It’s a bad thing.
If we discharged you home would you start any more fires.
No.
Why not?
It’s a bad thing to do.
The last time we sent you home you started another fire a few days later.
Yes.
Why?
I like fires.
So if we sent you home what would you do.
Start a fire.
Why?
I like fires.
What do you watch on TV?
The news.
Why the news?
There might be a fire. I like fires.
What if there are no fires on the news?
I might start a fire.
Do you like big fires or little fires?
I like big fires.
What do you like to see burning?
Doesn’t matter. It’s got to have big flames to get on the telly.
And on it goes. Insufficient mental capacity to consider the effects of their actions, sufficient impulse control to not proceed in front of people and, usually, sexual excitement on the act and afterwards.
I don’t think for a moment that the massive fires we are seeing are started by these characters and we know that after the blazes often several arsonists are arrested. And then? When did you last read about the sentencing for these characters? Do they go to prison? Sentenced but released? Ordered to undergo counselling. Based on the little information available at least some are from the ideological climate crusaders showing proof of global warming and we know these types of zealots routinely commit crimes. It’s exciting, it’s for a cause – a better world, releasing animals from cages and so on, you get lots of media attention, usually with the customary heroic slant. We know some people start fires for money, insurance fraud and business rivalries.
And then there’s the phenomenon of fires started by nefarious methods – lasers, directed energy weapons drones with flamethrowers and others. There are lots of youtubes showing how these work. Make up your own mind but I think they exist.
I remember reading that 90% of bush fires in Oz are in Victoria and 90% of those in national parks and we know there’s a purposeful build-up of fuel in them and lots of politicking about it’ management. You and I probably started little fires as kids and it was fun until we burned our fingers or it got a bit out of control. We knew there’d be hell to pay if we didn’t stomp it out. We may have put a little petrol on a backyard burn off and been alarmed at what, or might have, happened. Our reaction is one of fear. That’s in contrast to the reaction of the dim and the zealots – the bigger the better. Go home, watch your work on the TV. What registers is not the horror of it but your “work”. “I did that”. Your fifteen minutes of fame.
Politicians beholden to global forces, publicly funded media (including 7,9 &10 in advertising revenue) swamping us with false narratives, education systems discarding actual education, constant removal of life’ pleasures through taxation and regulation, punishments far outweighing any actual crime (such as speeding tickets or pet registration), coercive measures seen throughout Convid and elsewhere, it’s no wonder there are so many zealots, acadumbics (see The Catictionary) and non-critical thinkers. It’s a short step from induced-arousal to action.
I’ve seen lots of “little” bushfires over the years and two big ones. One was the Eyre Peninsula bushfires and luckily I was at the good end as it blazed away from us. Another was in a remote area cultural burn meeting reality. Might write a little piece about that one. In a mostly dry country like Oz you can bet within a few minutes of starting a fire to cook your food a willy willy will come along and carry embers far away. It was always thus and the current fad with cultural knowledge and “cold” burns is just nonsense. Nature ensures that.
Shy Ted considers himself a bit of (not a lot of) a veteran of rural and remote life, mostly, but not always, nursing. Most of what you might read about in the media, other than the superficial headline such as doctor shortages, is nonsense. It’s interesting, challenging and rewarding and not for the faint-hearted or ideologues. Where necessary, names have been changed to protect identity.
The Difference Between Pyromania and Arson
Report comment
The mental health card will be used to let them get released. The psychiatric history helps.
Psychiatric aspects of arsonists
Report comment
Ted, I don’t know much about fires, but is there something rather odd about the Maui fires?
In this video, two burnt out cars are in a burnt grass paddock however nothing around them (houses, shrubbery, etc.) was touched by the fire. It’s quite possible that wind driven embers from the main fire landed in this paddock and burnt these two cars, but would a grass fire develop sufficient heat to melt glass and metal alloy wheels? Not just melt it but liquefy it.
Maui D.E.W: Evidence of Direct Energy Weapon? Judge For Yourself..
The second video is of another burnt out car in a different location with similar damage (glass melted and liquefied etc.). This car was parked on a gravel patch beside a road at the top of a hill where there was a grass fire. There are some patches of burnt and untouched grass nearby however there wasn’t enough fuel on the ground there to generate the heat necessary to do the apparent damage.
MORE EVIDENCE – 2 Miles from Lahaina Fire A Melted Car Surrounded by Gravel! D.E.W. or What?
Assuming that these cars all had full tanks of petrol, would that generate enough heat to do the damage which these guys filmed?
Report comment
Last one I was involved with was at a small town north of Newman where I was working on a mine. We had a memorandum of understanding with DEFES and had a water truck and a dilapidated fire tender.
Some locals went into the town rubbish dump and set it on fire, deliberate probably. Was called in about 30 minutes after it started, tried to control it but Embers, winds (they start their own little weather systems) and before you knew it we had a full on bush fire, luckily the wind turned and ant town was not touched, but it was close, went on for about 4 days before it burned itself out.
Report comment
Thanks for the links, I’ll have a little read. First thing that jumped out –
Report comment
>Old bloke says:
>September 1, 2023 at 5:13 pm
In that first video the two cars are in a large vacant block surrounded by houses that didn’t burn. The unburnt adjoining areas have short mown grass, the burnt area, two weeks after the fire, is scorched earth, not a skerrick of organic matter left on most of it. So, a very hot fire.
The cars appear to be identical models , and there are no wheel tracks leading in to where they are, which would have been evident on the post-fire ground if they were being regularly driven. My guess is that they were non-functional wrecks, kept due spares or such. They may well have been there for a year or more, if no wheel tracks.
So my conclusion is they were sitting in a tall sea of grass, with grass growing under the car bodies, through the wheel housings, up into the engine space under the hood, possibly even into the interior if there were holes in the floor. And maybe the windows were already broken, which would have made ignition of the interior easy.
Given the fuel and wind, the outcomes are not that weird. Alloy rims can be melted in charcoal fire, and tyres burn really hot, especially with a strong wind. The alloy engine top cover could have been experiencing smithy’s forge conditions with fuel outside and wind forced in with only small exit points for the wind.
Melted alloy wheels have been seen in past fires including Bendigo 2009, California a couple of years ago ((Paradise fire) and also in recent Greece fires.
The bigger question is why all the clampdown on media footage and the failed government agency responses, and what is the true number of missing people, especially school kids, the latter by sone estimates >2000.
Report comment
Me
Report comment
From the NYT
Report comment