Spanish firefighter jailed after starting a fire to ‘satisfy his ego’

Volunteer firefighter Luis Trueba found guilty of using petrol to start forest fire in Cantabria in 2019

A volunteer firefighter who sought to satisfy his ego" by using petrol to start a blaze that devoured 144 hectares of forest and scrubland in northern Spain has been given a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence and ordered to pay more than 158,000 (137,000) in damages.

Luis Trueba, the former head of the Civil Protection volunteer service in Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria, had denied deliberately setting the fire in February 2019 so that he could help put it out, insisting instead that he had rushed to the scene out of instinct".