American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land

by Monica Hesse

In November of 2012, the Eastern Shore of Virginia was old. It was long. It was isolated. It was emptying of people but full of abandoned houses. It was dark. It was a uniquely perfect place to light a string of fires.

Ultimately, the visible remnants of an arson are not what it has left behind but what it has taken away.

A majority of arsonists have IQs below the range considered normal.

A disproportionately high percentage of them struggle with substance abuse or have been diagnosed with schizophrenia; a disproportionately high percentage of them are adolescents or young adults.

“Firesetting is a behavior. Arson is a crime. Pyromania is a psychiatric diagnosis.”

For a true pyromaniac, the fire itself is the motive. An act that becomes its own purifying absolution, its own reason for being. He lights fires because something about lighting fires gives him a sense of release.