ABSTRACT
In this chapter I deal with fire-raising against a brief contextual and historical background, discuss legal and statistical aspects and provide a classification of fire-raisers with implications for management. Those readers wishing for a more detailed treatment of the topic should consult my recent Fire-Raising: Its Motivation and Management (1994). A word of explanation is necessary concerning the choice of title for this chapter. The phenomenon of 'fire-raising' is also known in various parts of the world as arson (the legal term used), incendiarism, fire-setting (terms favoured in the USA and Canada), pyromania (a more restricted description once favoured in the nineteenth century and used to denote a specific form of insanity) and pathological fire-setting (a term used to indicate the involvement of abnormal mental states). I have chosen to use the term 'Fire-raising' as being general enough to encompass all these other terms and to embrace the various aspects of the phenomena to be discussed.
