Increase In Vacant Home Arsons Concerns Firefighters

Bloomberg News reports:

• [T]he biggest surge of mortgage defaults in seven decades coincides with an increase in blazes in foreclosed properties led by states with the most repossessed homes, according to fire safety officials in Nevada, Massachusetts and Ohio. "The more empty houses we have, the more fires we are going to see,'' said James Wright, chief of the Nevada State Fire Marshal Division in Carson City, the state's capital. "It's particularly dangerous for firefighters, because they don't know what condition these buildings are in or what they might find in them.''

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• Firefighter Mark Reed knows how dangerous a vacant, foreclosed property can be. He was critically injured battling a June 2007 fire in Buffalo, New York, set by arsonists in a foreclosed home on the city's east side. Bricks from the chimney crushed Reed, who was then 36. His mangled right leg later was amputated.

For more, see Arson Surges Across U.S. for Foreclosed Homes Lost to Subprime.