“It’s a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets. Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It’s fair. “-The Joker, from the movie Dark Knight
This is a building snowmobiles post for the simple reason that no one else is covering this arsonist story or fire in this way (minus maybe War Nerd), or really getting into the concepts of the ‘attack by fire’. Oyler, the arsonist, is the ultimate definition of the super-empowered individual, and truly symbolizes a modern day Joker. Fortunately, he will be meeting the same fate as that character.
Now of course I will not give a DIY class about using the attack by fire, but I do want to give a hint to the reader that this is stuff we need to be thinking about. Lets just say it should be in your toolbox of ideas, so you know how to defend against it. But according to the Geneva Convention, fire as an offensive weapon has been ruled out, hence why flame throwers are not used anymore. (I posted the protocol below) But if you read through it, it lists everything a terrorist or an insurgent wouldn’t mind doing to achieve a goal. So learning how to defend against it, is key.
But back to the attack by fire and the super-empowered individual. What Oyler did, is exactly what arsonists do, and that is get off on lighting fires. He had been perfecting his technique all summer in 2006, and the Esperanza Fire was his so called ‘masterpiece of chaos’. So what can we learn from this tragic event? I will attempt to answer that question, both from a smokejumper/forest fire fighter position, and from a security professional position, and also delve into the attack by fire from a warfighter and strategist point of view.
As a smokejumper, I fought many forest fires throughout the west. We would fight the small fires, and we would fight the big fires, it didn’t matter. We would fight naturally started fires(lightening started) and we would fight man made fires (trash fires, thrown cigarettes, etc.). But the most disheartening and frightening fires, are the ones set by arsonists. Especially arsonists that know what they are doing.
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