Firefighter Arsonist

It was a pleasure to burn.

As if being a firefighter isn't a dangerous enough job under normal circumstances, the serial arsonist (or even worse a compulsive/insane serial arsonist) is the bane of their existence. Surely there is no better opponent for someone who dedicates their life to putting out fires than someone who recklessly starts them with little regard for the destruction they are unleashing. Thus expect to see the conflict between the heroic firefighter and villainous arsonist making for a great narrative.

That is except, of course, when it turns out they are one and the same.

Sadly, despite their otherwise heroic reputation, fictional fire departments don't seem to have much in the way of background or psychological screening for candidates. When stories focus on a serial arsonist on the loose, there is a good chance it's going to turn out they are in fact one of the firefighters introduced trying to stop them, especially in cases where said firefighters aren't the protagonists of the story.

There are numerous explanations for what motivates them to do this. Maybe they're addicted to being seen as the hero who saves people. Maybe they're trying to make a name for themselves. Maybe they're motivated by financial concerns. Or maybe they've simply decided that this job is the best cover for someone of their tendencies.

It's entirely possible they used to be a genuinely heroic firefighter, but something (say a horrific trauma related to the job, or perhaps being screwed over by uncaring officials, or even the very people they gave everything to save) caused them to snap and they are now taking vengeance, making them the fire department's answer to the Lawman Gone Bad.

Whatever the reason, this firefighter is more interested in starting blazes than stopping them.

A common hint that this is the case is when the arsonist is presented as particularly skilled and knowledgeable at starting fires (in particular through highly specified and complex methods), and suspiciously always seems to be one step ahead of the fire department.

Please note that to qualify for this, the arsonist has to at least be someone connected to firefighting (or impersonating one). Examples simply involving someone starting fires so they can put them out or save people to appear the hero fall under Engineered Heroics.

Compare the Killer Cop and the Detective Mole, where the very member of law enforcement investigating a crime is secretly the culprit behind it. Contrast Dirty Cop and Deadly Doctor for other corrupt members of the Emergency Services.

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Examples

Fan Works

• My Ideal Academia: It's revealed that the Firefighter-themed hero Backdraft has been secretly intentionally starting fires and then putting them out afterward to gain fame. Therefore, Spinner and the Hero Killer Stain decide to end his life.

Film — Live-Action

• Backdraft: Chicago firefighter Brian McCarthy and arson investigator Donald "Shadow" Rimgale team up to investigate several suspicious fires that resulted in backdrafts that killed several city officials and businessmen. It eventually turns out that veteran firefighter John "Axe" Adcox is responsible. Having discovered that Alderman Swayzak and his associates have been shutting down numerous fire stations, using fabricated reports to claim they are unneeded so that he can award lucrative contracts to his business supporters and pave his way into the mayor's office, endangering the lives of numerous civilians and firefighters, he is now on the warpath after everyone responsible.
• Big Bully: Downplayed. As a child, Ulf was always "obsessed with explosions, or setting things on fire"; now, as an adult, he's the town's fire chief. While he's still obsessed with fire (at one point, he stares mesmerized at the flame from his lighter), he doesn't set or cause any fires.
• Firestorm (1998): The arsonist who starts the forest fire is ultimately revealed to be Jesse's former mentor: retired smokejumper Wynt Perkins. He thought he was being paid to start the fire in order for a land developer to build a training school for firefighters, but it was actually cover for a prison break.
• Pienidze To Nie Wszystko: In this Polish comedy/dramedy, one secondary character is a firefighter who once set the local church on fire so he would finally have something to do. Although this is Played for Laughs in a Never Live It Down kind of way, it's also presented as a more-or-less sympathetic result of Nineties-era deep countryside ennui and directly compared to full-on unemployment of the other characters left stranded with nothing to hang on to after their commie-era collective farm was shut.
• Point of Origin: This is a 2002 Direct to Video by HBO Dramatization of the hunt for Real Life serial arsonist John Leonard Orr—a fire captain and arson investigator for the Glendale Fire Department in Southern California—starring Ray Liotta as Orr.

Literature

• Fahrenheit 451: This is a major plot point. In the futuristic world, buildings became fireproof. This combined with a public fear of the ideas presented in old literature, led to Fire Departments being relegated and reformed to being responsible to starting fires, to burn books, and anyone's house that holds said books. Assisted by a "Robot Dog", they make deadly use of flamethrowers.
• The Circle Opens: The book Cold Fire involves a serial arsonist. Turns out it's the firefighter Ben Ladradun. After his wife and children died in a fire, he was unhappy that his warnings about the dangers of fire were being ignored, so he secretly started setting fires himself and they finally formed a fire brigade. Then he accidentally killed a woman in one of the fires, and found out that murder gave him a thrill, so from that point on his intent was to kill people.
• Discworld: Ankh-Morpork's long-disbanded Guild of Fire Fighters is implied to have been arsonists. They were paid either by the fire put out, or via insurance policies advertised with lines like "that thatch roof there, would go up like a torch with one carelessly thrown match, know what I mean."
• The Fireman: A rare heroic example in the titular Fireman, John Rookwood. Infected with the incendiary Dragonscale spore, John disguises himself as a firefighter to help rescue other infected. He has mastered his own Dragonscale and become a full-fledged pyromancer, able to make fiery constructs and hurl fireballs while staying unburned.
• Tony Hill and Carol Jordan: A subplot in "Wire In the Blood" focuses on Carol Jordan discovering a serial arsonist by linking several fires at abandoned factories and warehouses over the last few years that follow a subtle but clear pattern. The Station Manager of the local Fire Brigade assisting her believes it to be a pyromaniac. However, Tony, upon getting a chance to examine the data, concludes this to be impossible as there has never been a case of a pyromaniac on this scale with enough self-control to keep up such a reliable regime for this long without escalating, concluding instead the arsonist must be somehow benefitting from each fire. Sure enough, one of the part-time firemen is a compulsive gambler in severe debt, who has been starting the fires to ensure work and thus a quick payout to keep their head just above water.

Live-Action TV

• Arrow: The series version of Garfield Lynns, a.k.a. the Firefly, who appears in "Burned" is a former member of the Starling City firefighting unit "The Fireflies" who was thought to have been killed during a massive building fire due to ignoring orders by the Chief to fall back. Having survived the blaze but being left disfigured, Lynns became a vengeful recluse. After his wife leaves him and takes their children, Lynns dons a firefighter uniform and begins killing his old crewmates by burning them alive in retaliation for them leaving him behind.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
  • In "Payback", whilst examining some discrepancies on a case he worked back in the '80s, Holt discovers evidence proving that some of the fires attributed to a notorious serial arsonist the Brooklyn Broiler, were actually committed by a firefighter who wanted to look like a hero. Unfortunately, as the case is decades old, the firefighter died of old age two weeks beforehand without ever facing justice.
  • Lampshaded in "A Tale Of Two Bandits". Upon discovering the local firefighters want to claim Shaw's, the 99's usual hangout, due to needing a new bar, the squad mockingly ask whether one of them turned out to be an arsonist and burned down their old one. The Fire Lieutenant declares this to be a nasty and unfounded stereotype, before sheepishly admitting that did actually happen.
• Castle: Subverted. When an arson investigator is killed in the latest of several suspicious files, he is initially suspected of being the arsonist following the discovery of evidence linking him to the earlier ones. However, it turns out he was in fact investigating the fires having realised they were arson, and that the arsonist is actually a city building inspector who felt he was cleaning up "blighted" neighbourhoods.
• Chicago Fire: Season 2 features the team dealing with a serial arsonist starting fires in buildings considered dangerous for firefighters or having links to the firefighters at Firehouse 51. This inside knowledge leads Kelly Severide to conclude their dealing with a firefighter turned arsonist with a vendetta against the rest of the team. It's eventually to be ex-Firehouse 51 member Kevin Hadley, whom Chief Boden was forced to transfer out when Hadley, out of belief that he was being passed up for a promotion in favour of the rookie Peter Mills, started pulling a series of increasingly-cruel pranks on Mills which eventually escalated into full-blown dangerous and disruptive behaviour. Hadley never let go of his grudge and vowed revenge on the others, engaging in a series of mind games and attacks until he's eventually caught by Severide.
• CSI: NY: Inverted. "Reignited" features a firebug who is also a wannabe firefighter, having applied and been turned down no less than 11 times in at least 3 boroughs before the events of this episode. He had also set an abandoned car on fire in an alley two weeks prior, just to watch it burn. He arrives at a genuine apartment building fire dressed in stolen turn-out gear and quickly becomes the prime suspect when the authorities realize the number on his stolen helmet is from a firehouse in a different borough. However, he's quickly ruled out by Mac on the grounds that he's too stupid and deluded to have pulled out such a complex plot.
• Criminal Minds:
  • In "Ashes and Dust", it is mentioned that serial arsonists are often firefighters or other first responders who use their job as an opportunity to revisit the scenes of their crimes. The killer in this episode is also seen wearing full fire gear when he commits arson - but, in a subversion of the trope, he's actually not a fireman. He just likes to stand in the flames and watch people burn.
  • The serial killer of the episode "The Fallen" is revealed to be a firefighter who was kicked out of the service for becoming infected with a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis when saving homeless people from a fire. Already having a severe case of OCD and germ phobia, the firefighter decided that homeless people were a plague and had to be exterminated, with his victims drowned in bleach and then used as kindling for setting abandoned buildings ablaze.
• Grimm: In "The Three Bad Wolves" Nick investigates a house explosion that nearly killed the owner, a harmless Blutbad named Hap. Despite their Arson Investigator, Lieutenant Peter Olson, concluding it was an merely unfortunate accident, Nick and Hank grow suspicious after discovering Hap's brother died in a house fire the previous month. As Nick eventually discovers, Lieutenant Olson is a Bauerschwien who was responsible for both murders, in retaliation for Hap's sister murdering his own brothers.
• Hunter: "Fire Man" sees Hunter and McCall dealing with a masked firebug who torches abandoned buildings with a flame thrower. A traumatised veteran insists that it's a war criminal he served with in Vietnam, who randomly burned a native village to the ground, despite him officially dying several years earlier. As they eventually discover, the firebug actually murdered another person and stole their identity, and is presently working as a firefighter for their day job.
• The Pretender: In "The Better Part of Valor", Jarod investigates the death of a firefighter and learns that the fire she died in was the latest in a series of fires set by one of her colleagues as part of an insurance scam.
• Psych: In "Earth Wind And Wait For It," the arsonist turns out to be Arson Inspector Army Johnson, who had been setting fire to buildings as a cover-up for the stashed bodies of arsonists he had killed as revenge for two firefighters who died responding to the fire they set a decade prior.
• New Tricks: "Where There's Smoke" sees the team reinvestigating the 1996 Union Club fire that killed four people including its owner. As the owner was a member of a particularly notorious crime family, everyone assumed it to be an assassination attack, but as they later realise after dealing with several other fires, each set off with simple yet precise homemade firebombs that use an incendiary timing device same as what started the Union Club fire, it was in fact a random attack by a serial arsonist. Said serial arsonist is eventually revealed to be none other than the highly respected retired Metropolitan Fire Brigade fire investigator who investigated the fire, their interest inspiring him to come out of retirement. The team even discuss a case of several Brazilian firefighters who were caught doing the same during their confrontation.
• Reaper: The very first infernal fugitive Sam is tasked with capturing is Ned Schmecker, an arsonist from The '50s who died trying to burn down his parents' house. Escaping from Hell in present day, he continues his fire-starting antics whilst disguised as a fireman, now with Playing with Fire powers.
• The Rookie: Season four has an arc of the LAPD dealing with a Serial Killer who burns his victims alive in disused buildings, with John Nolan coming to suspect it to be the local LAFD lieutenant Fred Mitchell, his girlfriend Bailey's boss. Subverted, when it turns out the actual killer is in fact Fred's unassuming neighbour who had been secretly setting him up as a patsy and eventually murders Fred with a bomb.
• Schmigadoon!: Played for Laughs in "How We Change," the last episode of the first season. During a scene where the townsfolk are confessing secrets and revealing Hidden Depths (and being congratulated by the protagonists), the town firefighter confesses to being an arsonist.

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham Knight: As revealed by completing the "The Line of Duty" quests, facing massive manpower cuts due to Gotham City having to provide numerous compensation pay-outs to the criminals who survived Protocol Ten, out of desperation Station 17 Chief Raymond Underhill secretly made a deal with the supervillain Firefly to set numerous abandoned buildings on fire, thus ensuring the city would have to keep all his men employed. This horrifically backfired, as Firefly, being a sadistic, unstable psychopath, betrayed him during Scarecrow's mass evacuation of the city, setting several fire stations alight and getting Underhill's men kidnapped by all sorts of thugs and crooks.
• Team Fortress 2: Invoked by the Pyro who has a few accessories relating to firemen attire, such as a firefighter helmet and a firefighter jacket.
  Vintage Merryweather description: Pyro wears this in tribute to the many firefighters who have perished trying to quell his flames.

Web Animation

• Transformers: the Decepticon Smolder transforms into a fire department brush truck and is partnered with the Mini-Con Chopster who can function as a flamethrower. Ratchet and Bumblebee confront him after the latter burns an already burning building that firemen were working to put out.

Western Animation

• Darkwing Duck: In the episode "Stressed to Kill", Quackerjack has a toy fire engine that shoots fire.
  Megavolt: Nice shootin', Quackie! (Chuckles a bit, then gets confused) But isn't the fire engine supposed to spray water?
  Quackerjack: Of course not, then it would be a water engine.
• Futurama: In "The Inhuman Torch" the Planet Express crew become firefighters and put out a series of high-profile fires, all at places that Bender previously visited while off-duty, making people suspect that he started those fires so he could claim the fame for putting them out. It was actually a fire monster from the Sun riding along in his pilot light.
• Sonic Boom: Invoked. At the beginning of "Buster", Dr. Eggman invents the Evil Anti-Firebot, a robot who looks like a fireman but does the exact opposite of everything a good fireman does. Instead of putting out fires, Evil Anti-Firebot sets things on fire; instead of rescuing people from blazes, Evil Anti-Firebot puts a baby in a burning house, and puts a kitten in a tree.

Real Life

• In the 1980s, California was plagued with fires, with the first being a hardware store in South Pasadena that killed four. Every investigator said the fire was electrical outside of the arson investigator and Glendale Fire Captain John Leonard Orr, who insisted it was an arson... a fact he knew due to it being him who started it. As well as this, Orr set fires in Bakersfield, Pacific Grove, and the Los Angeles metropolitan district from the late '80s to early '90s. Orr was later found guilty after his left ring fingerprint was found to match evidence from a fire in Bakersfield. Several FBI criminal profilers have deemed Orr one of, if not the, worst American serial arsonists of the 20th Century.
• In 2002 the Hayman fire scorched Colorado Springs becoming the largest fire in the state's history (until it was exceeded in 2020) scorching 138,114 acres of land. After initially maintaining she merely stumbled onto the fire whilst on patrol, after repeated questioning U.S. Forest Service employee Terry Barton confessed to having accidentally started the fire, claiming she burnt a letter from her estranged husband in a campfire pit in a moment of distress. Terry was tried and sentenced to six years for criminal damage and lying to the investigators. However, when examining the pit, forensics were unable to find any evidence of burned paper amongst the ash and her estranged husband initially denied any knowledge of such a letter. To this day there is speculation that she started the fire deliberately in an attempt to be the hero who put it out, and it got out of control.
• Numerous wildfires in the Western US have been deliberately started by people who hoped to get jobs fighting the fires.
• In 1982, a group of disgruntled police, firefighters, and accomplices in and around Boston, Massachusetts carried out a Boston arson spree from February to November 1982 in protest of planned budget cuts to the Boston Fire Department and Boston Police Department. They set at least 163 fires, and while nobody died, they caused over $22 million in damage and injured over 270 of their colleagues, several of whom were forced to retire. Due to their actions, Boston briefly became the arson capital of the United States, and their prison sentences ranged from five to sixty years in prison.
• In parts of the Western United States during the first half of the 20th century, it was fairly common practice for out-of-work firefighters to set brush fires to get work. Prior to the passage of stricter arson laws in the wake of the Hayman Fire, firefighter arsonists were usually let off lightly - in 1953, an out-of-work firefighter was convicted of setting a fire that killed 15 firefighters and served a total of three years in prison, with the jury refusing to up the charges from "willful burning" to murder.

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