What Motivates Arsonists?

With the recent discovery that the devastating California fires were started by arson, law enforcement agents and profilers are looking for the person who started the fires. What sort of person would intentionally set these fires, and why?

In "The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" by Michael Newton, arson can be motivated by different things; vandalism, excitement, revenge, crime-concealment, profit, and extremist. The encyclopedia goes on to cite the example of John Orr, who was a serial arsonist who set fires around Los Angeles during the 1990s. One fire destroyed over sixty homes. Orr himself was an arson investigator with the Glendale Fire Department, and as the book notes, he "set fires most often after attending seminars with fellow arson investigators." (1) The book also notes that David Berkowitz, most famously known as "The Son of Sam" set fires in New York City and planned to set a stranger's apartment on fire because he thought he was "plotting against him". (1)

It's difficult to know what motivated the fires without knowing more about the potential arsonist.

Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI agent, wrote an article on MSNBC.com about the trickiness of an arson investigation. "The thing about arson is that it's difficult to investigate. In fires, most if not all physical evidence of arson is consumed in the fire itself," he writes. (2) Therefore, accurately profiling the one who set the California fires is a crucial step to finding the criminal. Van Zandt writes that finding "the epicenter of the fires" is essential to finding the arsonist, finding a pattern in the fires to see where everything started.