‘A wall of fire and heat’: Maine fire chief arrested, accused of starting 42-acre blaze

[fred v]

Source: The Washington Post



By Niraj Chokshi May 7 at 1:32 PM

It took more than 100 firefighters to fight back the flames that consumed more than 40 acres of grass and marsh in Maine last month. Now officials say it was one of their own who started it.

Around 2 a.m. Saturday, authorities took Old Orchard Beach Fire Chief Ricky Plummer into custody on an arson charge in connection to the April 15 fire, the Associated Press reported. His arrest comes just one day after roughly a dozen investigators from the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Maine Forest Service seized computers at Plummer’s fire station and in his official vehicle.

The mid-April blaze tore through 42 acres at the Jones Creek Marsh in the southern Maine coastal town of about 8,600, where Plummer worked. At the time, he described the fire to the Portland Press Herald, noting that its flames came within 100 feet of a nearby condominium complex.

“Flames were 20 to 30 feet high, just a wall of fire and heat,” he said in April. The assembled firefighters put out the four-alarm fire with no damage to the complex and no injuries, the paper reported.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/05/07/a-wall-of-fire-and-heat-maine-fire-chief-arrested-for-starting-42-acre-blaze/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_pn-firechief-144pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

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Between this and LePage, I think Thomas Frank needs to write another book!

[fred v]

1. Comment Edited

Ayuh

[JustADumbFireman]

2. And I thought MY chief was a jerk.

[awoke_in_2003]

4. Welcome to DU. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

3. Welcome to DU. nt

[jtuck004]

5. I wonder what's in his head, made him do that. Need to be needed? n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. They want other people to think of them as heroes. . nt

[jtuck004]

8. It could be, but we already laud them in many ways,. Might also be something with his employment,

or family, and it manifests itself like this.

Sad, and at least no apparent harm to the things people think they should value, or people.

And maybe heads off worse.

[jmowreader]

7. Was Paul LePetomane planning to make cuts to small fire departments in the state?

Most public safety people who do things like this - a firefighter who torches a building or a hospital orderly who tampers with a patient's life support systems, say - are low-level people who want to be the hero. Plummer, however, was the top guy in his department. Maybe Governor LePetomane was planning to defund Plummer's department to help pay for some of his tax cuts.

[magical thyme]

9. a Masshole transplant.

go figure.

I hope the marsh birds weren't nesting yet.

[Akicita]

10. This seems to happen quite a bit with firefighters for some reason.