[mcantelon]

Are those stats on people deliberately setting forest fires, something much more serious than garden variety arson?

>What is increasing is the rate at which those acts become extensive bushfires

According to MSM 24 were charged with "deliberately lighting bushfires", not committing garden variety arson that metastasized into bushfires.

Forest fires have always been easy to start, if one wanted to, but people intentionally attempting to do so seems unusual.

[lurgburg]

There is a breakdown of which incidents relate to bushfires yes.

[mcantelon]

Care to quote that rather than linking to a largish PDF?

[lurgburg]

https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/e...

[mcantelon]

Assuming "cause a brushfire" means intentional causing, rather than unintentional causing during commission of another arson, that's certainly an alarming trend. I live in a region of Canada that's had seasonal forest fires for as long as I remember and I don't recall any of them being intentionally set. Not good to see this emerge as a crime trend although I'm, in a way, not surprised given I've wondered for awhile why terrorists haven't been using forest fires as a tactic given the potentially low risk to mayhem ratio.