Single, alcoholic, illiterate and unemployed - this is the profile of Portugal’s arsonists who have wreaked havoc across the country this summer.
The police have a well-developed profile of the nation’s arsonists who, according to data from the National Civil Protection Authority, cause more than 95% of the forest fires in Portugal.
Portugal suffers thousands of fires every year - in 2016, more than half of the territory that was burned across the European Union, was in Portugal. This year, 2017, Portugal is breaking records with more than 224,000 hectares consumed by flames so fat this year, of a European total of 559,000 hectares.
In an attempt to control those who unleash so much chaos and tragedy, Portugal's Polícia Judiciária has had a list of more than 500 arsonists on a list they have been developing since 1997.
Those on the list have been diagnosed with a condition that means they cannot resist the urge to start fires, a profile studied by forensic psychologists Cristina Soeiro and Raquel Guerra from the Psychology department at the Polícia Judiciária training school.
According to their analysis, 92% of the group’s members are divorced or single men with little education. More than half of them have little or no schooling and one-fifth are illiterate. One third are unemployed, living in rural areas of the country and belonging to a low social stratum. 73% already have a criminal record and suffer some kind of mental condition; 39% are alcoholics and 17.4% show signs of psychosis.
They cause fires while under the influence of alcohol, overcome by depression, or affected by a mental condition. Interestingly, the researchers claim these arsonists are not aware of the consequences of their actions.
In this group this year, there was a 48-year-old woman who caused a fire in Proença-a-Nova, Castelo Branco on August 8th this year, drunk and desolate after being abandoned by her partner, as well as a 33-year-old firefighter detained in Póvoa de Lanhoso, Braga when it was discovered that he had caused fires with the aim of becoming the hero of the day in putting them out.
Most worrisome are the revenge arsonists, who account for 43% of those caught by the police this year.
Many act out of revenge on neighbours in rural areas, such as the 44-year-old man who was arrested this week in Cabeceiras de Basto, Braga, after setting light to his neighbour’s land as he felt he had been insulted.
The Portuguese profiling system is said to work well when detecting arsonists but with the closure of many psychiatric hospitals during the crisis, many vulnerable people have no support. It is this, more than any other factor, claim the Spanish psychologists, that has seen the rise in the number of fires in 2016 and 2017.
More than 100 arsonists so far have been detained in 2017 with the vast majority of arsonists fitting the profile established by the police with many drunk at the time of their arrest. Police authorities said that many of the accused caused fires "in order to create pasture areas in the forest" but generally the reasons remain locked inside people's heads.
