Fires for Fired Firemen

For 14 hellish months during 1982 and 1983, in five Massachusetts counties, 163 buildings were burned, all of them at night. Almost no type of structure was spared: churches, factories, restaurants, a Marine Corps barracks and even the Massachusetts Fire Academy in Stow. The fires were set deliberately, and earned Boston, where most of the burnings occurred, the title of Arson Capital of the U.S. Baffled city officials said "anything" might be behind the mysterious torchings. Last week, after a two-year investigation, a federal grand jury indicted seven arson suspects, including two fire fighters and two housing policemen. Their alleged motive: to dramatize the need to rehire fire fighters and police officers, some 1,000 of whom were laid off after a 1981 state tax cut. The conflagrations that the suspects are accused of setting injured 282 people, including 65 fire fighters, and caused $22 million in damages. Federal prosecutors said it was the biggest arson case in U.S. history.

U.S. Attorney William Weld indicated that some of the suspects may have worked for companies that benefited from insurance money. The indictment painted a picture of a ring that staked out potential targets at night, took oaths of silence and even dumped 14 fire boxes into Boston harbor to delay the reporting of blazes. Declared Boston Fire Captain Matthew Corbett: "These guys were sick."