Editorial: Heat needs to go on firebugs

An arsonist has been hitting Havelock North.

Here's hoping that the person or persons behind the spate of arsons in the Hastings district will be caught soon.

It takes a certain mentality to wilfully go around and damage or destroy someone else's property without taking into account the consequences.

In the latest incident, a trailer-mounted portable toilet was set alight in a St Georges Rd orchard in Parkvale on Sunday morning, while earlier a pile of bark had been set alight in a playground in nearby Parkvale School.

Read more here: Arsons put residents on alert

This follows three vehicles, two vacant houses, a school classroom and Splash Planet's 50-year-old pirate ship being set alight since February 28.

However, the worst was a car being set alight after a home invasion on March 13. A family was asleep in their Jellicoe St home when a young man walked through the house, flicking a cigarette lighter at about 4.30am. When challenged he left, but the family car was set alight.

Whether or not the arsons are the work of the same group of people, they need to stop before someone dies in a fire or major damage is done. What the people setting the fires don't realise is that the penalties for manslaughter or total destruction of property are far more severe than for simply setting a small fire.

They don't realise that a small fire can become a large fire and the police and Fire Service do not want to wait around for that to happen. They want to catch whoever is responsible now.

Police are warning that anyone seen loitering in Parkvale and Mayfair streets in the early hours of the morning will be treated as suspicious.

The chances of the culprits being caught sooner rather than later are strong. Someone, somewhere, knows who they are and the sooner they tell the authorities, the better for us all.