Fires set by arsonists in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area over the past five years burned through more than $38.4 million worth of property.
The brunt of the damage happened in Lackawanna County, where the combined $26.7 million price tag on its 325 arsons in that period account for 69.5 percent of the metro area's total cost of arson damage, an analysis of state police crime statistics by The Sunday Times revealed.
- Over the past five years, the arson rate per 100,000 residents in Lackawanna County has consistently surpassed the rate in counties in metropolitan areas nationally - twice more than doubling that rate.
- Despite those figures, the crime is actually becoming less prevalent in both Lackawanna County and the metro area.
- Though the crime offers little by way of consistency or predictability, what may come closest to a constant in arson statistics is the number of cases closed by arrest, a rate that shows local investigators outperforming national averages.
And while the worst damage arson does to the lives it touches cannot be quantified, the homes, cars and other belongings it leaves charred in its wake can be translated into a number which, year after year, remains large despite a downward trend in the metro area since 2007.
"The thing with fire that is different from other crimes is that it's completely physically destructive," said attorney Maryann J. Grippo, a former Lackawanna County deputy district attorney who for several years specialized in arson prosecution.
"As horrifying as it is for your house to be burglarized, the walls are still up when it's over," she said. "If your house is set on fire, very often that's it."
Local prevalence
In the past five years, the metro area has averaged roughly 153 arsons each year - 36.5 percent of which were residential fires.
Lackawanna County averaged about 65 arsons per year in that time - about 80 percent of which were residential.
In Scranton, about 20 fires were intentionally set in each of the past five years - about 35 percent of which were residential fires.
But the more telling number is Lackawanna County's rate of arson per 100,000 residents compared with the rate among counties across the country.
For each of the past five years, the county has maintained a significantly higher rate of arsons than the national average, according to statistics compiled by the state police and FBI.
Though the trend did not begin in 2007, it reached its pinnacle that year, one of several reasons it stands out as the worst year for arson in Lackawanna County out of the past five.
The 89 arsons reported in the county that year made for a rate of 41.5 arsons per 100,000 residents - a number that more than doubled the rate among metropolitan counties nationally.
Part of the blame can be laid on the two men who could arguably be described as Lackawanna County's only serial arsonists in the past five years: Ben Christensen and Stephen Giacobbe.
Though investigators charged Mr. Giacobbe, who died last week, with only one arson from that year, a garage in Vandling, authorities blamed Mr. Christensen for four of the county's arsons in 2007 once his seven-fire run ended the following year.
Both Mr. Giacobbe and Mr. Christensen continued their work in 2008 - each man set three fires for which they were later arrested - though the county's overall incidence of arson dipped slightly.
Still, however, the 76 arsons that year set the county's arson rate per 100,000 residents more than 75 percent higher than the rate among metropolitan counties nationally.
Arson investigators got the fewest number of calls - 44 - in 2009 than they did in any of the past 10 years, which amounted to an arson rate per 100,000 residents only 18.5 percent greater than the rate in metropolitan counties across the country.
But by the next year the dip proved an aberration, as the county's rate climbed to 76 percent higher than the national rate among metropolitan counties in 2010 and again more than doubled that rate in 2011.
Rates falling
Though comparisons to national rates would seem to paint Lackawanna County as a place unusually afflicted by arson, the crime has actually become less prevalent in both the county and the metro area.
The number of arsons in the metro area increased in only two of the past five years - 2008 and 2010.
In 2008, the 174 arsons reported in the metro area topped the previous year's total by two.
In 2010, the 156 cases made for a 13 percent increase over the 138 cases in 2009.
Despite those two years, by the end of 2011 the crime's incidence had dropped 47 percent from its 10-year high of 238 reported arsons in 2005.
The crime has been slightly more persistent in Lackawanna County, where the number of arsons has increased in each of the past two years.
Still, the 59 arsons reported in 2011 amounted to only about 66 percent of the 10-year high of 89 arsons in 2007.
Within the city of Scranton, the number of arsons fell in each of the past five years with the exception of 2010, when the 26 arsons doubled the previous year's tally.
Clearance rates
Where incidence rates and tallies tend to defy predictions or year-to-year patterns, what is somewhat more consistent in arson statistics is the number of cases closed by arrest - or, the clearance rate.
Over the past five years, investigators in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro have made arrests in just over 25 percent of all cases.
The most successful year came in 2011 with a clearance rate of over 28 percent.
In their worst year of the past five, 2008, arson investigators in the metro area still made arrests in 20.1 percent of all cases.
And while those numbers might seem low, they are actually higher than the national averages.
The metro area's arson clearance rate has been consistently higher than the national rate, which bounced between 18 and 19.9 percent over the past five years, according to FBI statistics.
In Lackawanna County alone, clearance rates over the past five years have been lower than the metro area's on average - 21.4 percent versus 25.57 percent.
But still the county's investigators on average outperformed the national clearance rate of 18.96 percent in that time, though in 2008 and 2009 the county's rates fell below the national rate in those years by 3.6 and 0.52 percent respectively.
Why?
The reason so few arson investigations end in arrest is simple: "lack of evidence," said Scranton police Fire Marshal Marty Monahan.
"And it's nobody's fault. Maybe it's in a desolate area. Maybe it's at 3 o'clock in the morning and all the witnesses are awakened by sirens," he said.
There is an advantage to investigating arsons in more urban areas, where the proximity of neighbors can allow for the fire being noticed and reported more quickly.
When William Woods set the fire at 166-168 S. Hyde Park Ave. that would claim the lives of two of his ex-girlfriend's young sons in 2009, for example, the crowded West Scranton neighborhood helped investigators place Mr. Woods at the scene of the crime.
One neighbor woke to the sound of glass breaking and saw Mr. Woods outside the home. Another neighbor told investigators she had a conversation with Mr. Woods just moments before the fire. He had said he was on the way to the home of his ex-girlfriend, Tyaisha Leary, to apologize.
But in more rural areas, a fire could be "blowing out the windows" before anyone in the area notices it, which limits the possibility of valuable witness accounts, Detective Sgt. Monahan said.
Though that is not to say that arsons that occur in more densely populated areas are assured to result in an arrest.
A massive fire in the Weston Field section of Scranton, one of the city's most crowded neighborhoods, was ruled arson the day after it began in a vacant home in the 600 block of Langstaff Place in March and jumped to two adjacent homes as city firefighters battled the blaze.
Over nine months later, investigators have yet to file charges against the person responsible for the fire that displaced 19 people.
Price
There may be few constants when it comes to arson data, but one of them is certainly the cost the fires incur in property damage.
In the past five years alone, $38.4 million worth of property burned in intentionally set fires. The lion's share of that property - $26.7 million worth of it - burned in Lackawanna County.
And a good chunk of that figure can be attributed to Mr. Christensen, a repeat if not serial firesetter who not only racked up a large number of fires but who by and large made it a habit to set them in large businesses, among them Jonal's Lawn and Garden Center in Greenfield Twp., Maiolatesi Winery and the six other businesses at Mermelstein's Marketplace in Carbondale Twp., Fortuner's Moving and Storage in Mayfield, Highway Auto Parts in Archbald and Fiorelli's Plaza in Blakely.
The fact that all of the fires for which Mr. Christensen was later charged occurred over a 14-month span across 2007 and 2008 goes toward explaining the disproportionately large dollar amount in property damage in those years - $11.4 million and $11.6 million, respectively, in Lackawanna County.
The number dropped precipitously in 2009, when only $1.6 million in property damage was reported in Lackawanna County, and continued its fall to $743,151 in 2011.
Contact the writer: domalley@timesshamrock.com, @domalleytt on Twitter