Is That All There Is My Friends?

And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire?" - Peggy Lee
I remember saying something like that to myself, many years ago. My older brother had some friends who inadvertently burned up a great portion of the empty field, Long's Gardens, above our house. The problem was pop bottle rockets and a large section of dry grass and weeds. This mixture created quite a stir on our sleepy lane. The biggest confusion was in getting fire trucks to the blaze. A number of different neighborhoods backed up on the field, but all of those streets ended in cul de sacs and fences kept anxious neighbors and firemen from getting direct access to battle the spreading flames. My childhood memories have been supplanted by endless stock footage of other fires, both in real life, and on TV and movies, but I can still recall the horrible fear I felt for the two boys who started it. In the end, there was a lot of shame and embarrassment, but no jail time was required, and any fines were limited to the loss of allowance.
I am guessing that the ten-year-old who started the fire in Santa Clarita, California, that scorched sixty square miles and destroyed twenty-one homes would like to hope investigators are that nice when it comes time to take responsibility for his experiments in pyromania. Legal experts say arson charges against him are unlikely, given that he may have been too young to understand how much damage his match-play could cause. Even The Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger said he did not think the child meant any harm (though he did say it with a funny accent). The scary part comes when one tries to imagine how he and his parents could possibly compensate all the families who lost their homes, not to mention the cost of fighting the fire in the first place. Is that all there is?