A Trail of Ashes

Fire can be as destructive as war: Arson at the Happy Land social club in the Bronx killed 87 people in 1990, leaving a scene of devastation and clues scattered in the ashes.

After a year on the job, Baker obtained permission from the chief and the Board of Engineers to wear the uniform of a firefighter -- red shirt, fire cap and fire coat. The Board of Police Commissioners conferred upon him a sergeant's shield, on which was engraved Fire Marshal, New York. He got a regular salary and an assistant. Thus did the Bureau of Fire Investigation in the Fire Department of New York become one of the oldest investigative agencies in the United States.

Today, arson is widely underreported, just as it was in Baker's time. Now, it's a Catch-22 situation: If it's not reported, it never happened. If it never happened, you don't need anyone to investigate it, and municipalities can save money by not hiring "too many" to do so.

Underreported as it is, we do know that the incidence of arson increases during economic downturns -- when businesses, vehicles and homes are torched for insurance fraud -- and during periods of social unrest.

Investigations dealing with wiseguys, merchants or landlords are extremely difficult. They require a tremendous amount of work: many interviews, and much digging, not only in the rubble of the fire but also in business records.

The range of possible suspects can be mind-boggling. Sometimes construction workers will start a fire to prolong the job and avoid unemployment. In a few cases, individuals have achieved sexual gratification from making a fire. Some serial arsonists are psychotic, making fires because they are delusional, but the true pyromaniac is relatively rare.

Many fires are set for revenge . Women will make fires to get even with their husbands or boyfriends cheating on them, according to New York Fire Marshal James McSwigin. "A number of times you'd walk into a fire scene, and it is the kitchen that's burned. In your physical exam you find a mountain of metal zippers, metal clips and burnt cloth on the stove. You know then where the fire started and the reason for it without ever talking to her. She burned her paramour's clothes to get even."

Before Sept. 11, 2001, the two largest cases of mass murder in New York City were the result of revenge fires. The first fire was in the Puerto Rican Social Club in the South Bronx, which occurred shortly after 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 24, 1976. Twenty-five people were dead on arrival and another 24 were seriously injured. Two of those injured would later die. Jose Antonio Cordero, although married with two children, was jealous of a young woman who went to the club that night against his wishes and started a fire.

Early in the morning of March 25, 1990, a jealous lover set fire to a dollar's worth of gasoline at the entrance of the Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx. The fire was quickly extinguished, never growing beyond a first alarm, but it took the lives of 87 victims. The arsonist was caught and sentenced to multiple life terms.

In the United States today, children account for starting the largest number of fires, and the largest group of juvenile fire setters is composed of very young children who are "playing with fire" and unintentionally create a blaze. A small group are psychotic, and often intend to hurt someone. A third group includes troubled children crying for help. A fourth group, usually teenagers, is delinquent, delighting in causing mayhem or trying to get out of school, as has been occurring in Baltimore in recent months.

Vanity-fire setters are mostly low-wage, somewhat socially inept guys who make the fires, then discover and extinguish them in search of praise. McSwigin recalls a case when he and his partner were asked to interview Tony, a 21-year-old security guard, suspected of starting numerous fires that were getting progressively larger and more dangerous.

McSwigin got Tony to open up to him. "Tony looked at us," McSwigin remembers, "and said, 'Well fellows, sit down. Maybe I'd like to talk to you.'

"Then Tony very slowly said, 'Well you know . . . sometimes when I'm in the apartment house I get cold . . . and I would shake . . . and when I made the fire . . . I would feel warm . . . and I would get better.' "

The funny thing about a multiple fire setter is that the hardest thing for them is to tell you about the first fire; once they do, the others come out quickly.

Former Supervising New York City Fire Marshal Arthur Massett told me about an investigation from the 1980's, when three children were killed in a Queens fire and reporters flocked to the scene. "We were there all night," he said, "but the detectives show up around 5 a.m. in their Burberry's, their Gucci shoes, and pinky rings. The fire was set in the basement. There was a foot of water down there."

Eventually, Massett and another marshal left the scene with two detectives. A television reporter asked a uniformed cop what happened.

"He replies, 'I don't know. Why don't you ask the fire marshals? Here they come now,' " Massett remembered . "So, she looks at the four of us, and says, 'Which ones are the fire marshals?' The cop asks, 'How long have you been a reporter in this town? Don't you know the fire marshals are always the guys with the dirty shoes?' "

Author's e-mail:

pm33@nyu.edu

Peter Micheels is the author of "HEAT: Fire C.S.I. and the War on Arson and Murder" (Thunder's Mouth Press).