Burnt Out Detroit
The rise of arson. The fall of Detroit.
Everything has to start somewhere, for some reason or another. Stated by Detroit historical society, Detroit was thriving and full of wooden homes and businesses. Their only means of "fighting" against fires, were stockades, large (usually) wooden barriers between areas of the town and "bucket brigades". These bucket brigades were volunteers of citizens in the town lined up to pass water from the river to the fire in progress in an attempt to extinguish it. Not only were these brigades physically and mentally exhausting, they were merely an attempt and proved fairly unsuccessful. Despite that, they were at least successful in the prevention of spreading these fires.
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Another huge impact on arson in Detroit is the hell-raising "Devil's Night". This night, specifically the night before Halloween, has been a tradition for over fifty years. The petty crimes like egging houses or vandalizing them with toilet paper had rapidly turned into a much bigger issue in the 1970's when teenagers and gang-affiliates put abandoned buildings to flames. As much as it turned into a 'not-so-trendy' trend in other populous urban cities, there was nothing like Devils Night in Detroit. "The destruction reached a peak in the mid-to-late-1980’s, with more than 800 fires set in 1984, and 500 to 800 fires in the three days and nights before Halloween in a typical year", according to an article by Joshua Millican in 2016 on Horrorfreaknews.com. |
"Nothing burns like Detroit" - What Lt. Joe Crandall, a Detroit Fire Department arson investigator had to say in an article about the arson rates in his city. Something many people do not think about when it comes to arson is how it affects the city outside of the visible destruction. Home owner insurance in Detroit is already double of the state average. It is also extremely costly to extract the homes burnt down by arson. In 2014 the city spent $3.5 million dollars on demolishing only a very low percentage of the burnt down homes that have been sitting for years. 66 percent of the piles of homes that were victim of arson from 2010 are still burdening neighborhoods. The problem is also not only with abandoned buildings. Data shows that over 50 percent of the homes that caught fire from 2010 on and confirmed as arson or suspicious fires were occupied homes. Sadly, about 17 people were killed in 2014 due to arson in Detroit, while others have been also injured.
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