Lires have multiplied this summer, to the point of reaching a record surface in France in 2022. Firefighters continue to fight on several fronts, from Gironde to Aveyron and even Brittany. Whenever a fire breaks out, the courts open an investigation to determine its origin. According to information from BFMTV, it is sometimes arsonists who are the cause of these disasters. Already 25 individuals have been arrested since the beginning of the summer, suspected of having caused a series of fires.
Among these 25 arrests, 6 people were remanded in custody and 4 others have already been sentenced. To find their traces, the investigators first work on the scene where the fire started. Samples are taken there in order to identify possible perpetrators. The public prosecutor’s offices also deploy their team of experts responsible for carrying out DNA surveys or neighborhood surveys.
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As a reminder, an arsonist responds to an impulse when he causes a fire. In Ardèche, a forty-year-old was indicted on July 29. He admitted to having caused several outbreaks of fire having ravaged 1,200 hectares of forest. When he was arrested, he had a “significant alcohol level”. In the Hérault, a former volunteer firefighter also admitted having been the cause of several fires. Drunk during his arrest, he then explained that he “acted with the aim of provoking the intervention of the fire brigade in order to extract himself from an oppressive family environment”, but also for “the excitement that the interventions caused him “.