Who is to blame for fires?

Adam Thiel, Philadelphia’s 20th fire commissioner, has done doctoral work in public policy, in addition to earning degrees in fire science and history.

On Tuesday, he showed his public policy chops with a declaration that the “root cause” of fire disasters is a dearth of safe, affordable, public housing.

He was referring to both the Fairmount fire that took 12 lives and the Bronx fire that claimed 17.

Each fire occurred in subsidized public housing. 

They were “affordable,” they were public, but were they safe? If not, whose fault is it?

The Bronx fire was traced to a space heater. I don’t know whether the use of such devices is permitted. I do know they are dangerous.

In Philadelphia, one TV reporter said the cause was “a cigarette lighter that ignited a Christmas tree.”

The reality, according to Thiel: a 5-year-old playing with a cigarette lighter ignited the tree. See the difference?

I am not assigning blame, just reporting reality.

“It is much too simple and it is wrong,” Thiel was quoted as saying, “to blame a 5-year-old, or to blame a family that really doesn’t have any other options, for the fire problem in the United States is bigger than that.”

A couple of weeks earlier, speaking as a Fire Commissioner rather than as a woke social scientist, Thiel said the 5-year-old started the fire and occupants were not alerted because the smoke detectors — furnished by the city and inspected just a few months earlier — either had been disabled or the batteries had been removed.

Let’s repeat that: the life-saving smoke detectors had been disabled by the occupants.

Why would someone do something so stupid unfortunate?

One landlord tells me his tenants routinely steal the batteries to use in toys or appliances. 

In other cases — including my own apartment — tsmoke detectors may go off during routine cooking.

So the occupant disables the device. (No, I never do that.)

This is not a problem exclusive to public housing, nor poor people. 

Fires are equal opportunity destroyers — from inner city tenements to Main Line mansions to homes built on hillsides in the far west.

Some fires can be avoided, some can be easily extinguished, some can be escaped.

Fire has nothing to do with income, race nor social standing.

Please avoid distractions, Mr. Commissioner.