Nation's arsonists struggle to adapt to record gas prices

Detroit, Mich. – Thrice-convicted professional arsonist Ryan Maranzona told reporters Tuesday morning that he and many of his industry colleagues throughout the United States are currently struggling to turn a profit through the plying of their trade as a result of record-high gasoline prices.

“Making a living by burning things to the ground requires that you keep a low overhead, which is hard to do when the cost of one of your primary deconstruction materials keeps going up like it is,” said Maranzona, a 27-year-old Detroit arsonist who has relied on his skills with the flame to provide his livelihood since dropping out of and then burning down his high school at age 16. “Recently, there have been a few times when I’ve started wondering if I might be better off going into a different line of work. But then I’d go burn down a building or two and I’d remember that, for me, arson isn’t just a vocation, it’s a way of life.”

Faced with a more than two-dollar per gallon price hike, determined professional fire-starters like Maranzona have begun exploring new ways of creating unstoppable five-alarm fires in an effort to maintain their business’ profitability.

“Many of us are experimenting with using less expensive kinds of flame accelerants or are relying more and more on wind power to quickly spread fire throughout a structure before it can hoped to be saved [by firefighters],” said Maranzona. “Another thing we can do to save gasoline is to stop starting a large amount of small fires that each require gasoline to get going, and instead focus on starting a small amount of massive fires capable of engulfing several buildings or an entire city block. These are advanced techniques that require more brains and less benzene.”

Some of Maranzona’s older colleagues, however, either unwilling or unable to embrace these necessary changes to their business models, are lighting their final fires and moving away from what was once a red-hot market.

“My old buddy, Manny, who more or less taught me the ropes of how to make money in the intentional fires business, is so distraught over the decline of his business that he’s started hitting the whiskey hard,” said Maranzona. “So hard, in fact, that last week he didn’t even have enough inventory on hand to make a decent Molotov cocktail to do a job. At that point, you’re pretty much washed up in the business. He’ll probably end up burning down his own house for the insurance money and retiring down to Florida.”

Andrew Gabriel, a seasoned yet fiery professional arsonist from Cleveland, argued that it will take a lot more than high gasoline prices to cause his business to go up in smoke.

“Us pro firebugs have faced worse obstacles in the past and still come out smelling like premium unleaded,” said Gabriel, 48, a third-generation arsonist. “Take my father, for example: he was stuck trying to light fires for a living during the Great Matchmakers Strike of 1968. Things got so bad that Dad had to torch the family station wagon using the car’s own cigarette lighter just to have [insurance] money to put food on the table.”

Obviously undaunted by current conditions, Gabriel even went so far as to put a positive spin on the gas price situation.

“One good thing about gasoline costing so much is that it has weeded out most of the amateurs – those pesky weekend pyromaniacs who only commit acts of arson during their leisure time and without regard for financial compensation,” said Gabriel. “Most of those novices have moved on, seeking less expensive chaotically destructive hobbies.”

While Maranzona doesn’t exactly share Gabriel’s optimism for the future of their shared profession, even he admitted that industry conditions could, in fact, be worse.

“At least I don’t work down where they had all that flooding around the Mississippi [River] last month,” said Maranzona. “Those poor bastards were trying to burn down buildings that were under fifteen feet of fucking water. Talk about a hard dollar.”