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Date Published: 07/09/2022

ARCHIVED - The 84-year-old who was caught on camera deliberately starting a forest fire in Spain

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The octogenarian arsonist set fire to scrub land located dangerously close to inhabited homes in Galicia, Spain

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - The 84-year-old who was caught on camera deliberately starting a forest fire in Spain

The Guardia Civil in Pontevedra (Galicia) has arrested an octogenarian as the unlikely arsonist who deliberately started a forest fire dangerously close to several homes in the northern Spanish town of Nigrán.

Following a summer of blistering temperatures, Spain now accounts for 40% of all the scorched earth in Europe and more shocking still is that fact that more than half of the wildfires in this country are started on purpose or as a result of human recklessness.

The first sparks of the Pontevedra blaze were spotted on the afternoon of August 28 in an area thick with undergrowth and flammable ferns, and just a stone’s throw away from several inhabited buildings and a forest area.

Thanks to the rapid action of several local residents and the police force, the fire was quickly doused before it had a chance to spread, on a day when the mercury was sky-high and a brisk wind could easily have fanned the flames further.

Upon investigation, officers from the Baiona-Nigrán Guardia Civil identified an 84-year-old resident as the likely arsonist, when footage emerged showing him bent over the foliage and presumably setting it alight. The octogenarian has since been released and is awaiting further proceedings.

The suspect certainly doesn’t fit the usual profile. The Guardia Civil in Spain have actually used mathematical algorithms to establish that the person most likely to cause a forest fire is a 46-year-old self-employed male who lives in the countryside and has no previous convictions.

Image: Guardia Civil

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