Two juveniles charged with arson in East Tennessee wildfires that left 14 people dead

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Two juveniles charged with arson in East Tennessee wildfires that left 14 people dead

By J. Freedom du Lac

https://twitter.com/jfdulac

December 7 at 3:45 PM

Two juveniles have been charged with aggravated arson in connection with the East Tennessee wildfires that killed 14 people last week and left nearly 150 others injured, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday.

During an investigation, information was developed that two juveniles allegedly started the fire, the TBI said in a news release.

A petition was filed Wednesday in juvenile court charging the juveniles with aggravated arson, the TBI said.

Both were taken into custody Wednesday morning and are being held at the Sevier County Juvenile Detention Center, authorities said. No additional information about the suspects was immediately available.


Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/12/07/two-juveniles-charged-with-arson-in-deadly-east-tennessee-wildfires/

[LittleGirl]

1. omg, juveniles? WTF?

14 lost because of them and so many lost their homes? What is WRONG with people?

[Egnever]

2. They are kids

Kids do stupid shit all the time. Usually it doesn't kill anyone. Unless it comes out they did it to intentionally cause harm I am going to skip demonizing them.

[PatSeg]

5. Agreed

As long as I can remember kids have been playing with fire, mostly without serious consequences. Most kids are fascinated with fire and it is luck that it rarely results in property damage or death.

[csziggy]

3. Maybe it was just stupidity

The weather conditions - high winds and dry conditions - contributed to the deadliness of the fires. Maybe the kids just didn't realize how the fires would blow up and out of control.

From the article linked in the OP:

Although wind gusts exceeding 60 mph caused the disaster to explode in Sevier County, fires had been brewing for months in this region. More than 150,000 acres have been charred in the Southeast by large fires, according to the U.S. Forest Service, and nearly 4,000 firefighters have been called into action to fight blazes that keep popping up.

The wind carried the flames from the nearby Chimney Tops fire across ground parched by a historic drought and into the surrounding towns. The fire moved too fast and too far to contain. “This is a fire for the history books,” Miller said last week. “The likes of this has never been seen here.”

Even adults can be really stupid about burning in excessively dry conditions. It was the very high winds - at least one gust to 87 mph according to one interview I saw - that got it out of control and kids may not have been monitoring that.

[SharonAnn]

4. The Chimney Tops fire burned for a couple days before the incredible winds kicked up and spread it.

The fire was thought to be contained, but the 80+ mile winds that came up suddenly doomed that effort at containment. And that's how it spread so rapidly and peopl had so little time to get out.

Four+ months of drought in an area like this turns it into a tinderbox.

[csziggy]

7. Yeah - but a lot of people don't pay attention to drought conditions

I've dealt with stupid people a lot that could have started that kind of fire.

Once the plantation traded off their land behind us and were no longer doing controlled burns to our east, the new "farmette" owners that thought their 3-4 acres made them estate owners did a lot of stupid things. Like having Halloween bonfires in the middle of serious red flag warnings. Or using their little lots as "hunting preserves."

After a lot of complaints from us and other long time land owners in the neighborhood most of them got the idea. You don't set fires in the open when there hasn't been any rain in months. You don't shoot at a deer or turkey when the bullets that miss will travel across a dozen lots the size of yours - and hit the house of one of your neighbors while their kids are playing outside.

I mostly sicced the fire marshals on them. I have my bottom thirty acres between me and them and I'm at the top of a ridge so the chances of a stray bullet didn't worry me so much. But if they started a fire that got out of control, trying to contain it in the swampy bottom land that is my back thirty would be next to impossible. By the time it might get to my pastures, horses, barns and house, it would be a raging inferno.

[cstanleytech]

6. So far they are only accused which is an easy thing to do to people especially kids.

Getting a conviction though will be difficult unless they confess or are railroaded by providing them with a shoddy lawyer which wouldnt be the first time that will have been done to stupid kids who are poor and not well connected.