Update: Have you heard the saying "It only takes a match to light a forest fire"?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071031/ts_nm/california_wildfires_dc

Apparently a pre-teen kid playing with matches has confessed to starting this terrible Californian wildfire.

So here's the score:

• Affected area: 38,000 acres.
• Buildings destroyed: 2300.
• Deaths: 12. Injured: 78.
• Cause: a couple of matches.
• Perpetrator: a pre-teen kid.

A couple of days ago, Californian governor Arnie Shivaji made a public Terminator statement: "Whoever has started this, whoever you are, you should be running. You should be scared, shivering in your pants, because we're right behind you. We're going to hunt you down. You should turn yourself in." [Run and turn yourself in. To us. With us right behind you... Forgive me for being just a tad confused.]

Poor pre-teen kid. The Terminator's got it out for him.

"The boy was sent home after confessing, and the District Attorney's office will consider whether to press charges."

"It takes only a match to light a forest fire." A powerful life lesson, and that's some powerful way to learn that lesson, for the poor kid. You can trust him to fear the consequences of little actions from now, and he would probably not make the big self-destroying mistakes that we tend to make during our adolescent and young-adult years.

In some sense, I envy him.