S’mores fire contained. 25 arson investigators are on the job . . .

Photo above - Guy in pickup truck: "WTH??? This was someone making s'mores at 10 in the morning?"

Did you hear about the 600-acre wildfire on Long Island? Me neither. But it’s finally out.

The cause, according to investigators, was some moron making s’mores in their backyard at 10 am. Wind gusts around 30mph. 600 acres torched. A squadron of firefighting aircraft making water drops. 25 arson investigators have been mobilized.

You might throw up your hands and say . . . 25 arson investigators? Really? But after January's Los Angeles fire – a mashup of empty reservoirs, high winds, and documented arson – you can’t blame NY for proceeding with an abundance of caution. Anyway, they caught the guy. See link below.

Earlier that week, a South Carolina woman was charged with arson after 2,000 acres burned. 500 aerial water drops were needed, involving 600,000 gallons. She claimed she was just trying to use her backyard fire pit. Her neighbors ratted her out. The president was dissed for not taking Air Force one to investigate in person.

Millions were spent putting out these fires. They COULD have been intentional arson. But the lean instead is towards stupid/crazy. Who tries to cook s’mores over an outdoor grill at 10 on a windy morning? Drugs may have been involved.

We've had less luck catching the suspects who are tossing Molotov cocktails at Tesla dealerships, and spraying them with bullets. I haven’t seen any arrests - if you have a link, please share it. This seems a bit more serious than ICE'ing a public charging station. Drugs may have also be involved with the Tesla arsons.

This comes down not only to narcotics, but untreated mental illness. Who in their right might firebombs car dealerships, or torches 15,000 California homes? That stunt cost $150 billion. Who takes over universities and trashes classrooms to show their support for Hamas? Apparently, a Palestinian activist with a legitimate green card organized this. Now the courts won't allow homeland security to deport him.

Yes, America DOES have a mental health crisis. This $hit is costing us billions. But nobody wants to put hundreds of thousands of lunatics on powerful meds, or confine them involuntarily in asylums and jails. Anyway, how do you pick which ones?

Psychiatrists were already counselling some of the worst spree killers and failed to identify any threat to the public. As exhibit A, I give you the Sandy Hook school shooting. Adam Lanza killed 26 people outright and shot dozens more. He was receiving outpatient mental health care. His mother petitioned the court to be named his guardian, because she testified that her son was dangerous. And then she started taking little Adam to the gun range, so they could have some mother-son bonding time over target practice. Both of them were crazy.

I'm tempted to say, “put the s’mores arsonist in jail”. Even if they do claim it was an accident, and that they weren't high. Except that New York state just fired 2,000 prison guards, out of a workforce of about 13,000. Because those guards went on strike and declined to return to the office. They went on strike because some New York judge ruled that solitary confinement of dangerous inmates had to stop. Those guards were in fear for their lives.

By my calculus, NY has an excess of arson investigators, and shortage of prison guards. And a politically manipulated court system that spent tens of millions of dollars investigating decade old business loans but typically won't jail people for narcotics trafficking and serial subway assaults.

There are too many problems here for a quick fix. At least I don’t have any. You are invited to share your own ideas on how to proceed.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Long Island fires likely caused by person making backyard s'mores, authorities say