A 46-year-old woman has been fined $2,860 for starting fires on a rural property near Nimbin by discarding her cigarettes.
Rural Fire Service members found the woman on a rural property after being called to extinguish a blaze at Arkinstall Road at Tuntable Creek about 11am.
Police later interviewed the woman at the Nimbin police station.
They allege the woman was walking through the property to get to Nimbin and discarded cigarettes without extinguishing them properly.
She was issued with a $660 infringement notice for discard cigarette on any land and a $2200 infringement notice for cause fire to the property of another.
RFS Fire Investigators please note the relatively minuscule amount of time taken by NSW Police to investigate and issue a fine. Excellent work!! The RFS appears to find it a difficult task to issue fines for starting an unauthorised fire – and particularly for those fires that leave the property of origin and cause damage on another property. It seems that too often, the only aim of the RFS Fire Investigators is to locate the point of origin. Why stop there?
Maybe it’s time NSW Police should take over those roles and continue their good work? Most fires are started with a match and too few perpetrators are ever punished !