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Should have been a journalist, publishing headlines like that, hah! Anyway, guys, America keeps burning down. OMG! WTF??
Please are there any POLICE/FIRE-men and women who wanna comment on this?
I've been commenting on some of these fires in another thread. The issues gotten so damn hot I had to start a new thread devoted to the topic of FINANCIAL ISSUES are causing a lot of FIRES burning down Americans' homes, not to mention causing injuries and (mostly) fatalities (Most times you asphyxiate relatively-quickly on the smoke and burn to a crisp post-mortem). (I know this also because I rode my bike near a forest fire once!)
Not only American homes (mainly smaller multi-family apartment units and homes converted in to multi-unit apartments it seems) but American businesses here and there are going up in smoke too...and not just at 4:20 pm either.
Here in my neck of swamp yankee Appalachia, a home burned completely last week (no one home at the time, apparently). Oh yeah, then there was another two or three the other day but not in my home town. Also around here old empty or partially empty industrial buildings are mysteriously having fires (some real big, some small) that usually start after midnight. Oh yeah, plus that night in the fall when someone cut a swath through Providence lighting about 4 or 5 fires at least, some of which caught real good and some fizzled.
Here are just two of the latest in the news, if I did another 2 minutes of research online I could probably post 5-20 more from the last month from around the nation.
It's not too hard to figure out what's going on here. Lives imploding financially, people emotionally come unbalanced, etc. Also, think about the vast increase in people doubling up on home occupancy to save money during the Great Recession (oh wait a minute, didn't that end in June 2010? yuk yuk).
When you have more people living together things are more volatile and basically there is a higher chance for somebody to do something dumb. Something that could cause a FIRE.
Whatever the case may be, this is certainly a sign of the times. BTW, notice any mainstream media covering this topic? What's that you say? The brainiacs at the NYT haven't covered this??
P.S. Anything burn down in your town last week?
P.S.S. Happy New Year y'all. Blessings to all the Good Eggs out there!
P.S.S.S. (Okay, that's silly!) Fire-resistant blankets on sale at your nearest WalMart. 99 cents made in China. You buy, you like!
Last edited by POhdNcrzy; 01-01-2011 at 11:46 AM..
Reason: To be or not to be too tired to edit too!
You migh also loo to see if the hoems are older homes besides in a state of disrepair. If you look at fire i any area mosrt are pretty concentrated i area by a large per centage. most are i areas where homes in disrepair are located. They tend to have more space heaters and other more dangerous heating or bad electrical. Abandoned home are even mroe of a target for vagrents starting open fires.
You migh also loo to see if the hoems are older homes besides in a state of disrepair. If you look at fire i any area mosrt are pretty concentrated i area by a large per centage. most are i areas where homes in disrepair are located. They tend to have more space heaters and other more dangerous heating or bad electrical. Abandoned home are even mroe of a target for vagrents starting open fires.
Yes, there are many old unimproved dwellings in the US, especially residential rental units. I wonder if there is a stock of older housing that's reached a level of crumminess now where fire becomes much more likely.
Whatever the case, a ton of stuff is burning down lately. I can't believe this hasn't been covered anywhere in the media (that I know of).
1. I haven't noticed more fires than usual in my area, so this may be a local phenomenon for you.
2. It is wintertime. In the wintertime, people light more fires than in the rest of the year, so accidents are more likely to happen.
3. The one part I agree with in your post is that with more people in a house, there are more chances for someone to accidently start a fire.
4. Have you actually done even an unscientific count to see if the numbers of fires per month are higher this winter than in past winters? If not, then don't berate the media for not jumping all over this "story".
I live in a poorer city and house fires aren't uncommon. The houses are older, people overload the circuits and bang! electrical fire. People lose their power and start lighting candles for light (Or even use candles for romantic lighting) and bang! curtains are set on fire.
People lose their lives because instead of replacing batteries in smoke alarms they dismantle them so they stop chirping. People lose their lives because they put bars over all the windows to keep the bad guys out, and don't spend the extra money to get breakaway bars (pull the chain on the inside of the window, cotter pins come out and the bars swing open) and they are trapped.
And while these things are tragic, they aren't necessarily caused by the economic realities of today. To my thinking you're jumping to conclusions...
This sounds like my old neighborhood in Detroit. Many years ago, back during the economic hard times of the late 70's --80's, parts od Detroit simply died, including my area on the East Side. A combination of factors, incluidng high unemployment, plunging house prices, high crime, etc, caused neighborhoods to die seemingly overnight.
Many resorted to torching their own properties, or at least the detached garages, to lower the tax value. It seemed there was a fire a week! Usually they were abandoned homes, we never knew if it was valdals, or people torching them to collect enough insurance money to pay off the mortgage. They would still be stuck with taxes on the land itself, but less than taxes on the improved property.
Of course, amy homes burned due to old, outdated, faulty wiring, and unsafe habits, such as using space heaters, etc.
Sticking your head in the sand never works, although it's certainly the great American pastime.
How is it sticking your head in the sand when what YOU describe is not happening HERE?
Seriously, there is no arson epidemic in my area!
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