A sad story. Two weeks ago, a fire in an airport prison killed 11 people. Mostly not criminals, but refugees who were not allowed to stay in our country, and were held in the prison before being send home again. Very tragic.

A couple of days ago they arrested one of the inmates, who they think started the fire. Interesting that you can actually arrest an inmate, as it feels that somebody should not already be in prison before the arrest happens… but well, guess they don’t have a special word for that… Anyways, the lawyer of the arrested person has made the following statement today:
“He didn’t start the fire deliberately.”
Straight away I can’t help but thinking: Weird statement… because it doesn’t deny the fact he started the fire… and the only way to start a fire not “deliberately” must be “accidentally”… but how do you start a fire by accident?!? In the normal world there must be many, many options, but in a prison cell?

My first thoughts go to rubbing wood together… he was in a cell, and the cell looked kinda basic, so probably he was a bit bored, let’s see if I can be like Crocodile Dundee… but still, you need to rub hard to start a fire! And where would you get the wood? And even if you do get it started, it ain’t an inferno straight away, let alone an accident. If I think a bit longer also the obvious things come to mind: matches or a lighter. But those also need handling of some kind to start a fire. I have never seen a match nor a lighter go off by accident… There are other options (see: National Geographic Survival Basics: How to Start a Fire), but like the rubbing, they seem a bit out of place…

The more obvious answer would be that he lighted something, forgot about it and that caused problems. Like people who light up a cigarette and fall asleep on the couch. That kind of thing. But as I can’t believe inmates are allowed to smoke in there cells, what could he have been lighting… Or in other words, what could be in a prison cell that needs lighting?! It’s not that he was in a medieval dungeon where they light the place up with candles and cook on an open fire… and it wasn’t to light tea-lights for a romantic evening…

Oi! Interesting stuff! While writing this, I just passed the TV on my way to a cup of coffee and apparently the lawyer has made another statement:
“He asked for a lighter, but didn’t use it to start the fire.”
Strange… my believe that inmates are not allowed to smoke or create a romantic setting in there cell seem to be wrong… Then they might go with my “falling asleep with the cigarette” story! So if they are, you read it here first! ;-) And if they are not… well, I will probably be amazed about what they can come up with…

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 20:17 and is filed under News & media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.