Arson

Arson is the offense of intentionally or recklessly setting fire to property, historically defined at common law as burning a dwelling house, and broadened in most modern statutes to cover any building, vehicle, or other property regardless of whether it is occupied. Statutes typically grade arson by the danger the fire created to human life and the type of property burned, with arson of an occupied structure or arson committed for an unlawful purpose such as insurance fraud generally treated far more seriously than the burning of unoccupied or abandoned property. Because a fire's cause can be difficult to establish after the fact, arson investigation relies heavily on the forensic discipline of fire investigation and origin-and-cause analysis to distinguish a deliberately set fire from an accidental one, and arson prosecutions frequently turn on this specialized forensic evidence more than on eyewitness testimony. Arson committed for financial gain, most commonly to collect fire-insurance proceeds on a struggling or unwanted property, is a recognized and extensively studied subtype within white-collar and insurance-fraud criminology, distinct from arson motivated by malice, concealment of another crime, or, in a documented minority of cases, compulsive fire-setting behavior.