Firebombing in Detroit ends 24-hour streak without a house fire

It was a rare but exciting moment for one of the nation’s busiest fire stations: Detroit was just 15 minutes shy of having no house fires in 24 hours.

But at 1 a.m. this morning, the streak came to a miserable end after someone firebombed an occupied house on the 300 block of Englewood on the east side. No one was injured, and no arson investigators were working because of chronic understaffing.

The previous house fire occurred at 1:15 a.m. Monday when someone set fire to an abandoned home on the 19000 block of Danbury on the east side, injuring a firefighter.

On Sunday, another firefighter was injured after someone torched three abandoned vacant houses in a four-block area of the west side.

The city averages between 10 and 12 house fires a day, a large majority of which are intentionally set. Detroit averages about 4,500 suspicious fires a year, and that includes cars, commercial buildings, houses and garages, according to Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration.

Related: As fires rage across Detroit, people are dying because of severe budget cuts. 

Most of the house fires are in vacant dwellings.
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Motives range from insurance fraud to blight control to thrill-seeking.

A quarter of the city’s houses and buildings are abandoned, making them easy targets for arsonists, according to the survey led by the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force and Motor City Mapping.

Duggan’s administration is reconfiguring the arson team, which is only able to investigate between 20% and 33% of all suspicious fires because of deep budget cuts under former Mayor Dave Bing in 2012. Duggan spokesman John Roach said one of the mayor’s priorities is replenishing the arson team.

  Abandonment, Arson, detroit, fire, Fire department, House, mayor duggan, Vacant houses

Steve Neavling

Steve Neavling lives and works in Detroit as an investigative journalist. His stories have uncovered corruption, led to arrests and reforms and prompted FBI investigations.

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