One thing to do is report suspicious activity near a house or other building to the local police. You may also join and support a Vancouver Crime Watch or similar program. The existence of these organizations may reduce the incidence of all sorts of crime, including arson.

Stop treating kids that play with matches as though it is just a "phase" that every child goes through. We must look at children playing with fire the same way we look at children playing with guns. If you suspect a child is playing with fire, don't wait for it to get out of hand. Talk to them. Find out why they're doing it. If it's because they don't know about fire, get them some education. If it's more than that, get them some help. There are several organizations in most communities that might be of assistance. Your local fire department, the police department, and mental health facilities to name a few, can often provide guidance to a parent in need of direction.

We also need to keep leaves, firewood and other combustibles away from our homes. A vandal may look at a stack of firewood against a house or garage as an invitation to start a fire.

Standard crime deterrents, including keeping doors and windows locked when we're not home also could help reduce the arson threat.

Business owners need to keep trash containers, boxes and other combustibles away from their buildings. They also need to make sure all windows and doors are securely locked when the workplace is closed. And, business owners need to keep track of all building keys. If you don't know who has keys, change the locks. Take keys away from employees who leave the company. A disgruntled former employee with access to the building could come back and do a lot of damage.

Keep doors and windows locked when a building is unoccupied. But don't use double cylinder deadbolt locks without keeping a key nearby, bars without quick release mechanisms, or other security provisions that could trap a person in a building with a deadly fire.

Installing burglar alarms and fire and smoke alarms and sprinkler systems are important, and worth considering.

The local fire and police department will be please to come to your property to conduct safety, security and fire prevention inspections or surveys and to advise you what additional measures you can take to protect yourself and your property from an arsonist.

We know that ancient people used fire to destroy their enemies' crops and houses, so fire as a crime tool has been around as long as recorded history and probably before then. And judging by today's arson statistics, more than a billion dollars worth of property destroyed, more than 500 lives lost and over 76,000 families displaced from their homes annually -- it is still being used as a major crime tool.

Please be aware of this potential, and make sure that steps are taken to protect lives and property.

Insurance companies are cracking down on arson fraud as never before. One way companies are doing this is by tracking and reporting information on suspicious fires, to the Property Insurance Loss Register, a national database, which police and fire officials use to investigate fires and prosecute arsonists. While this is not a recent development, increased use should pay bigger dividends as the amount of information in the database grows.

Many insurance companies also are giving more intensive arson detection training to their property claims adjusters. Company underwriters, the people who decide whether to offer insurance to individuals and businesses, are also receiving training in recognizing information that could warn that an insurance applicant presents a big arson risk. More and more insurance companies are making a commitment to help reduce juvenile fire setting. They are supporting existing programs for teaching children fire safe habits; providing the resources necessary to bring firefighters and kids together in a big brother relationship; and supporting outreach pro-grams to help people better understand the nature of this problem.

Of course, fire marshals and firefighters have long received training in arson detection. But in recent years a larger number of people in the fire service have become fire prevention and arson investigation experts. They are true detectives, highly trained and skilled in determining a fire's origin. Specially trained dogs are able to sniff out areas in which an accelerant such as gasoline, was used to start a fire, when human investigators can't. Of course, fire investigations take place after a fire. Given the choice, everyone would prefer not to be a victim of arson, making prevention the best approach.