Two Firefighters Charged with Setting Louisiana Forest Fires

WWL-TV New Orleans ^ | June 22, 2002 | Mike Ross

[Shermy]

One current and one former member of a St. Tammany Parish fire department have been arrested and charged with deliberately setting forest fires near Pearl River.

Kenneth Delaune and Dustine Talley have been charged with arson and criminal conspiracy. They each face a possible 20-year sentence if convicted.

Investigators say the two men touched off the forest fires in 2000 and 2001 because they were bored.

“They would be riding along the roads and possibly getting out of their vehicle and setting fires with lighters alongside of the roads,” said Roy St. Pierre, an investigator with the Forestry Department.

Investigators say that after the fires were set, the suspects would either go back to their residences or back to the station and wait for calls to go out so they could extinguish the fires.

According to officials, both men were members of St. Tammany's Fire District 7, which serves a rural area north of Pearl River.

Delaune recently took a job with a fire department in the Baton Rouge area, but officials say he was dismissed from that job this week.

Talley was still a member of the 7th district department. State investigators say they arrested him Thursday at the firehouse.

Investigators say the fires the two men are accused of setting were in remote areas, far away from any homes, but officials say that doesn’t make what they're accused of doing any less serious or dangerous.

The state forestry department, the fire marshal's office, and the federal ATF, are continuing to investigate suspicious fires in the Pearl River area from a couple of years ago.

In March, several other firefighters pled guilty to conspiracy in connection with forest fires in the Pearl River area.

[Shermy]

A "here, hold my beer" ping to you all.

[MissAmericanPie]

This is terrible, are pyromaniacs drawn to work in fire depts? Isn't there some psycological test that can be given to weed out these kooks?

[SpaceBar]

There seems to be a trend where those entrusted as guardians of the land seek nothing but their own job security.

[evolved_rage]

Investigators say the two men touched off the forest fires in 2000 and 2001 because they were bored.

Let us hope they don't try and pin 9/11 on a bored NYFD.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

My dad used to live in that area, and there was a rash of arson dating back a few years, including people's property. I'm happy they finally caught these scumbags.

[Clive]

Are these guys part-timers?

There have been stories for years about people setting forest fires in order to get work fighting them.

[Shermy]

Yeah, I don't know what's operating here. There is pyromania, there's thrill seekers seeking action (scanner guys pay attention!), those seeking heroism, those seeking to keep their jobs and funding relevant, all sorts of possible motives alone or in combination. In this story I suspect a combination of motives, compared to that lady in Colorado who seemed single-minded. Plain ol' hick-ism could be at play too.

[waterstraat]

Getting job security is so easy for a firefighter.

[monkey]

Investigators say that after the fires were set, the suspects would either go back to their residences or back to the station and wait for calls to go out so they could extinguish the fires.

Government in a nutshell.

[Vince Ferrer]

are pyromaniacs drawn to work in fire depts?

I think this is true, but I don't know how many, or how they are weeded out. There was a famous case in California several years ago where an arsonist went for years without being caught. A police psychological profile was released to the news, and part of the profile was that the arsonist had tried but failed to become a firefighter. The arsonist was turned in by his own family, who noticed that he fit the profile exactly. So it is common enough to be part of a police profile.

[scholar]

This is terrible, are pyromaniacs drawn to work in fire depts?

Yes, there is a lot of information that I am too lazy to look for at this time, that substantiates that premise.

[Vidalia]

Hello, Folks, It is coming home to roost...

The lax attitude concerning any truth whatsoever on applications for Federal Government jobs began with the Kennedy/Johnson era, when the hippies/anti-establishment and anti-war boys and girls figured out that the only way to change the government was to infiltrate and acquire the policy changing offices through tenure and appointment, which has happened.

To hell with upholding the Constitution, "WE will show them, just give us time... " became the MANTRA of the underground mentality.

Thus was born the major infiltration of any Federal agencies possible, including intelligence agencies by the deceitful newbies beginning in the early 1970's.

We are now seeing the results of those Socialist underground policies, either through direct Federal policy makers (remember those old hippy/enviros from 30 years ago?), or indirectly through the agendas put forth in the Government's Union/Socialist run schools, which churn out disrespectful, fact-ignorant potatoeheads who do not know the difference between Washington, D.C. and Washington state.

The GOVERNMENT NANNY CANCER is becoming malignant. The gangrenous smell already eminates from the Senate.

But, who cares...?

[CnsrvatvLdy]

I live in Phonix, and by now, most people have heard about the fires in northern Arizona. Last night our local news showed a map of all the fires in the U.S. There are many right at this moment. Many seem to have been started for dumb reasons. Makes me wonder if this is a new form of terrorism. I realize this is a very dry year but how can we have so many people starting these fires when they all know the danger. As soon as I saw that map I though of terrorism.

[MissAmericanPie]

I think they should be charged with terrorism and face the same war criminal fate as the Al Queda in Cuba.

[Yeti]

Just like the guy who owns the tire shop buying a box of roofing nails when business gets slow.

[Shermy]

Don't forget those glass window merchants!

[Tourist Guy]

>>>But, who cares...?<<<

I care...the problem is getting 51% of the sheeple to give a tinkers' damn

[arm958]

Government in a nutshell.

Not exclusively though. I recall a few years ago that the owners of a Brooklyn, NY auto glass company would use a pellet gun on windshields at night to drum up business. They were caught when police figured out that their shop was the epicenter of the mayhem.