Chronic Firebugs Often Are ‘Just Strange Folks’

Spite and anger often motivate adults who commit arson only once, but chronic firebugs usually are passive loners who, experts say, seek power and thrills by making firefighters rush to the scene of the crimes.

“They’re just strange folks,” said Ed Bodenlos, a U.S. Forest Service special agent who investigates arson in the Angeles National Forest and across the nation.

“In most cases, they’re withdrawn, quiet loners without friends or associates,” Bodenlos said. “They didn’t do well in school. They come from families with domestic trouble, either divorce or abuse, or some kind of drug or alcohol problem.”

There is a clear distinction between “those individuals (pyromaniacs) who are setting fires repetitively, perhaps from childhood on, and those who set their first (and often only) fire as an adult,” said Dr. Alfred Coodley, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and consultant to criminal courts and parole agencies.

Have Varied Motives

Coodley, Bodenlos and other experts said non-pyromaniac arsonists usually are motivated by anger, spite, profit, terrorism or social protest, using fire to conceal a burglary or other crime, or gaining recognition by extinguishing a fire they secretly set.

But pyromaniacs are passive, submissive people, often childhood bed wetters, “struggling to deny this and present themselves as powerful, controlling individuals who can clearly influence many other people: all the firemen who rush out there, crowds who watch the fire,” Coodley said.

“They like to see smoke. They like to see flames. They like to see red lights and fire trucks roll up,” Bodenlos said.

“Many come from broken families” and misbehave in many ways besides setting fires, said Dr. Thomas Hicklin, chief of the children’s psychiatric ward at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

“Their parents come and go with divorces or broken homes, so they feel helplessness, which wants to make them dominate every situation they can,” Hicklin said. “It translates into fire-starting.”

Bodenlos said wildfires are more likely to be set by pyromaniacs than other arsonists because spite and profit are less likely to be motives for someone setting a forest or brush fire.

Among non-pyromaniac arsonists, “the leading motive is spite,” said Don Brian, a long-time Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigator. “The individual suddenly has a grudge for any reason such as boyfriend-girlfriend disputes, husband-wife, landlord-tenant and employer-employee disputes.”

Arson “is a way to get back,” Brian said. “It’s a cowardly way to do it.”

Hicklin estimated that 20% to 30% of all arsonists are pyromaniacs. Brian believes that estimate is too high. Like other criminals, most arsonists are young men, although Brian and Hicklin said the number of females is rising.

“It’s probably the changing focus on femininity,” Brian speculated. “Women are coming into their own as criminals.”

Sexual gratification has been cited as a motive for pyromania, but Coodley and Brian said that is rare.

Coodley said some pyromaniacs are latent homosexuals who “are not sure how masculine they really are, and therefore attempt to prove they are heterosexual by fire-setting.”

Brian said relatively few arsonists are caught because their crime is usually hidden and the evidence is mostly circumstantial, but when arsonists are apprehended, the conviction rate probably exceeds 90%.

Bodenlos said the Forest Service solves three-fourths of its arson fires, but many state and local fire departments lack adequate manpower, training and commitment to expensive, long-term investigations to achieve similar success.

Pyromaniacs often end up in mental hospitals, while non-pyromaniac arsonists are more likely to get prison or probation, Bodenlos said, adding that many are on probation because of prison overcrowding.

Hicklin said juveniles usually are not prosecuted, although prosecution would help force budding firebugs to get needed therapy.

Coodley and Hicklin agreed that pyromaniacs should be confined until therapy helps them to become less dangerous, then receive long-term outpatient care.

Coodley favors psychotherapy to help arsonists understand their conscious and unconscious motivations. Behavior modification, which emphasizes proper behavior instead of feelings, also can work, and “there’s no question that some percentage of fire-setters can be depressed and therefore would be helped by antidepressant medication,” he said.

Bodenlos is dubious. “It’s my experience that . . . treatment is not successful and they’re back out setting fires.”

Brian believes that therapy can work, but said: “It angers me to see our beautiful, irreplaceable forests going up in smoke. It never fails to get to me. I love it when these individuals are apprehended and put away.”