“Arson”. This is the crime charged by the Carabinieri Forestry Unit of Cosenza to a man from Rende for a fire that broke out in the Santa Chiara district of the same municipality. The military managed to identify the perpetrator through the acquisition of video images made available by the operators of the Control Room of the Calabria Region who reported the event. The man was filmed by an aircraft available for the activity implemented through the “Zero Tolerance” operation for monitoring the territory. The man first set fire to several points in the area with vegetal ignition, burning over two thousand square meters of vegetation present, and immediately afterwards moved away from the area thinking he would not be caught again.
From the investigations carried out by the Forestry Service through the Physical Evidence Method (MEF) which established the starting point and from the information-investigative activity carried out, it was possible to identify the author of the fire. The intervention of a team of the Fire Brigade was decisive and managed to put out the flames, which could have had greater negative consequences as it could have spread over a very large area falling on the left side of the Crati river catchment area given the type of vegetation present and the morphology of the territory. After the usual investigations, the perpetrator of the crime was then referred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Cosenza.