Massachusetts Fire Marshal Expresses Concern On Increase In Abandoned Buildings Going Up In Smoke

In New Bedford, Massachusetts, The Standard Times reports:

• Two vacant tenements in the North End were torched Sunday night, fire officials said, underscoring a growing concern among public safety officials that the rising number of abandoned, foreclosed homes are sitting targets for vandals or desperate homeowners looking to recoup their losses. The fires [...] occurred weeks after another apparent arson at [...] an abandoned apartment building the city had boarded up. That fire started inside the first floor, and there is evidence it was set by squatters, fire officials said.

• Similar blazes of uninhabited, foreclosed tenements have been reported elsewhere, including Boston and Brockton, and mirror the trend from the early 1990s, during the last major recession, when arson increased as the rate of abandoned buildings skyrocketed across Massachusetts.

• "The current foreclosure crisis has not existed long enough for us to have a good statistical basis, but it is my observation from the number of fires we're responding to at vacant buildings that there is clearly an increase in the number of fires in those types of structures," said State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan.

For more, see Arson in two vacant residential buildings highlights public safety risks of foreclosure crisis.

For story update, see Firefighters back on the scene of North Front Street fire.

For other stories on fires & foreclosures, go here, go here, go here, and go here. foreclosure arson whale