The business stories that matter, by Fortune's Colin Barr
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July 3, 2008, 2:39 pm

Arson rises amid housing slump

By Katie Benner

The biggest surge of mortgage defaults in seven decades just so happens to coincide with an increase in foreclosed properties going up in flames; and states with the most repossessed homes are blazing the arson trail, Bloomberg reports, citing data from fire safety officials in Nevada, Massachusetts and Ohio.

The story points out that there was an increase in arsons after the last housing slump, when the number of fires rose 4%, to 116,600 in 1992 from 111,900 in 1990. Ohio’s State Fire Marshal says the number of blazes in vacant buildings rose 18% in 2006. In that state, one of every 161 households had a foreclosure filing during the first quarter.

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Colin Barr covers business and finance for Fortune.com. Previously he was an editor at TheStreet.com and author of the weekly Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street column, and an editor at Dow Jones Newswires.
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