If most nighttime fires arose from human negligence, and lightning caused sundry more, an alarming number were intentional. Certainly no more frightening crime existed—the “most pernicious to society,” declared a Scottish pastor in 1734. In English criminal law, nearly all forms of arson, directed against a home or a haystack, were punishable by death. In Denmark, whether or not lives were lost, beheading was the penalty for a mordbroender, meaning literally a murderer by fire.
Makes the tvtropes name "Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking" eminently sensible - arson was as dangerous.
