The Seattle Fires

[nicoge21]

Seems like alot of people point to that Paul Keller guy as the one who did them all (though he was later cleared?) but it appears from what I've read that it was all a big conspiracy theory with not much to back it up. There was no mastermind running around the city between 1984-1992 burning down buildings and the incidents were all unrelated and some were even later discovered to be accidental.

Am I right in assuming that?

[TheCars1986]

Keller wasn't innocent, he was still a serial arsonist, but he wasn't connected to the fire featured on UM.

[1990 UM fan]

From what I recall, one was caused by an accidental electrical fire. Not sure about the rest. They showed a large 2-story building and a shipyard on fire. That to me seemed more like arson. I'm not a fire expert either, but they said thermite was used in the fires. How does that explain the unknown chemical they claimed to have found that supposedly started the massive 5000 degree fires?

[XCalibur]

Not a fire expert, but it seems odd to me these fires would be accidental if they were supposed to be so sophisticated and hot.

[EighthStreet]

Just watched this segment and wanted to chime in because this might be the sloppiest segment UM ever made. I think this was really a case of investigators going out of their way to develop evidence from a theory, rather than developing a theory from evidence, if that makes sense.

Their biggest pieces of evidence that the lumber yard fire was arson were two eyewitnesses who saw a car pulling out of a parking lot and a man walking away and not gawking at a fire. Wow. Is that guy supposed to still be standing there to this day? Better get them under hypnosis to get some really detailed sketches of two generic white men. This case will be solved tomorrow.

What really stood out to me is that we did not see a single ATF or FBI agent involved in this nationwide arson conspiracy investigation. Instead we have the Seattle fire department going out of their way to investigate fires outside their jurisdiction that they weren't at. But we do get a "special investigator" from an insurance company, and they tried real hard to make look like a federal agent by putting him in front of some flags in a darkened office. Very official.

The recreation that UM made, which I assume was based on whatever the local authorities had conjured up, is complete nonsense. It details some kind of rogue architect or engineer who's supplying arsonists with thermite? Okay, where does that come from? What evidence do they have to present that as a valid series of events?

The whole thing is trash.

[Huskerz85]

Originally Posted by EighthStreet

Just watched this segment and wanted to chime in because this might be the sloppiest segment UM ever made. I think this was really a case of investigators going out of their way to develop evidence from a theory, rather than developing a theory from evidence, if that makes sense.

Their biggest pieces of evidence that the lumber yard fire was arson were two eyewitnesses who saw a car pulling out of a parking lot and a man walking away and not gawking at a fire. Wow. Is that guy supposed to still be standing there to this day? Better get them under hypnosis to get some really detailed sketches of two generic white men. This case will be solved tomorrow.

What really stood out to me is that we did not see a single ATF or FBI agent involved in this nationwide arson conspiracy investigation. Instead we have the Seattle fire department going out of their way to investigate fires outside their jurisdiction that they weren't at. But we do get a "special investigator" from an insurance company, and they tried real hard to make look like a federal agent by putting him in front of some flags in a darkened office. Very official.

The recreation that UM made, which I assume was based on whatever the local authorities had conjured up, is complete nonsense. It details some kind of rogue architect or engineer who's supplying arsonists with thermite? Okay, where does that come from? What evidence do they have to present that as a valid series of events?

The whole thing is trash.

Exactly.

The UM wiki page on this case says eventually most of the fires thought to be caused by HTAs (High Temp Accelerants) were determined to be accidents.

https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com...attle_Arsonist

This article goes even further, with the father of the dead firefighter saying that the whole premise of the segment (an arsonist using high temp accelerants) was bogus and used by the Seattle FD to cover their own incompetence (see the last paragraph at the bottom of the page: https://archive.seattletimes.com/arc...2&slug=2106427 )

Not surprising UM played it the way they did though, having previously bought into the Charles Morgan/Don Deveraux and Danny Casolaro stories hook, line and sinker.