Homeless man 'with flamethrower' blamed for starting LA wildfire
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A homeless man "armed with a flamethrower" has been blamed for attempting to spark a fire in Los Angeles as firefighters tackle a series of deadly blazes that have broken out in California. The Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth, Hurst and Lidia fires have killed 10 people and burned through tens of thousands of acres in the Golden State, turning communities into piles of ash. Firefighters are currently overwhelmed by the two largest blazes, the Easton and Palisades infernos, which are zero and eight percent contained respectively.
With officials are tied up fighting the fires, some locals yet to evacuate have been forced to take policing into their own hands due to dangerous acts by their fellow residents. Californians living in the Woodland Hills neighbourhood of Los Angeles stopped a homeless man carrying a "propane tank or a flamethrower" from adding to the chaos with a citizen's arrest.
The Californians said they saw the man as he attempted to set fire to an object behind a vehicle and surrounded him before forcing him to the ground, where they tied him up with plastic zip ties. Speaking to Fox News, one local said the man appeared to have been "very focused on moving forward with the blow torch".
They claimed the suspect said at the time: "I can't stop. I can't stop. I'm not putting this down. I'm doing this." Renata Grinshpun, a local, said the neighbours "really banded together as a group" to prevent the man from starting another fire. Police were called to the neighbourhood after the locals completed their arrest, arriving at the 21700 block of Ybarra Road by around around 4.30pm.
