Rumors of arson being the cause of the fire at St. Margaret Mary School were circulating Tuesday night even before the flames were extinguished. There was also speculation that the fire was related to several other smaller, less destructive fires in the area over the last several weeks.

Within twenty-four hours an arrest was made. The suspect is an 18-year-old man who is still a high school student. He is also a volunteer in the fire company which responded to the blaze, and he was with them as they fought it. He is charged in the St. Margaret Mary event and in the other fires.

Reports note that he had been in some minor trouble before. Two months ago he sought participation in the work of the volunteer firefighters as a way to turn his life around. He was a neighborhood kid, calling on his neighbors in a time of need. They had taken him to themselves, shown him the ropes, mentored him as firefighters and as parent figures. The group gave him the support and the acceptance he was looking for. The president of the volunteer outfit said he seemed like a good kid, like he was coming along.

Firefighters, be they paid or volunteer, do dangerous work under unpredictable conditions. Firefighting is a science -- you don’t just point water hoses at a structure and hope for the best. Fire prevention and self-protection, too, are sciences, and firefighters are tireless in their educational outreach efforts.

Fire companies have their social aspects as well. The members bond with one another, become like a family. Their fund raising activities benefit not only their work, but charitable concerns in their communities as well. For me, no summer is complete without at least one visit to a fire company carnival, and no winter should pass without a quart or two of homemade chicken corn soup from a fire company sale.

Most of the people who become firefighters are good people with a sense of adventure that they channel into a useful activity. But the job sometimes attracts a fringe element as well, people so hungry for the thrill of a dangerous pursuit or the adulation of grateful victims that they can’t wait for the all-too-frequent accidental fires that break out every day. And so they start fires, so they can get their adrenaline up, respond to the call, and do what really didn’t need to be done.

A fire’s aftermath is one challenge after another. There’s the grieving for the loss of
property and personal possessions that can never really be replaced. There’s the
interruption of lives, in this case the education of very young children, and the need for their teachers and administrators and other professionals to plan and carry out the rebuilding, as well as do the jobs they would have been busy with in these weeks under normal circumstances.

But the hardest thing, I think, will be coping with the betrayal by someone we trusted. Someone in our midst was not who he said he was, was not what he pretended to be. And he pretended to be someone we teach our children is a friend and an ally.

No one was killed in this blaze, no one was injured. No one was left homeless. For these things everyone is thankful. Structures can be rebuilt, books and crayons and achievement charts with each child’s line of stickers can be replaced. Already the community has responded with furniture, supplies, and services.

The sense of security, the sense of trust, will take longer

My earliest memory of trying to establish myself as an author comes from about fourth grade.