What was the most expensive arson in history? -- Was it the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6)?
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Destroying 2/3 of Rome, the Great Fire of Rome was probably the most expensive fire in history. The Great Fire of London and the Great Fire of Smyrna come close, as well.
Upvote:3
Let me expand my comment to an answer.
First of all, I agree with Lars that it is hard, if not impossible, to compare cost of fires from different eras, especially if some of these fires happened before the modern accounting and recording of costs. Even in the cases of Hiroshima/Nagasaki destruction, which both happened in the modern era, I am unaware of any estimates of the costs.
It is not exactly clear what "cost" really means. The minimalistic option is to go with the replacement value of the destroyed property, but what if the property was never replaced (as in the WTC attacks case)? What about the cost of the lost human lives/health? What about the costs of fire containment and clean-up? What about the immediate costs to the (local or global) economy?
It is also unclear to me what "single place" in your definition of arson means. For instance, in the case of WTC attacks, was the entire WTC a single place or two places (the separate towers)?
In any case, if we restrict to post-WWII period, my estimate is that 9/11 WTC attack(s) constitute the costliest arson(s). Why was it an act of arson: The dictionary definition of arson is "the criminal act of deliberately setting fire to property" does not take into account the mechanism of arson, whether it is done using matches and gasoline (as an accelerant) or airplanes and airplane fuel (as an accelerant). Some of the costs are documented at the Wikipedia article Economic effects of the September 11 attack. In particular,
The attacks themselves resulted in approximately $40 billion in insurance losses
Yes, one can count four attacks on 9/11/2001, but most insurance losses would be due to the WTC destruction. So, a crude estimate of insurance losses for each tower would be over 15 billion USD.
Furthermore, there were direct economic losses, just to NYC (from the same article) and the cost of clean-up:
The GDP for New York City was estimated to have declined by $30.3 billion over the last three months of 2001 and all of 2002. The Federal government provided $11.2 billion in immediate assistance to the Government of New York City in September 2001, and $10.5 billion in early 2002 for economic development and infrastructure needs.
And I am not even counting the cost of the US war in Afghanistan (with costs running over a trillion of USD) which was a direct consequence of the attacks.
How does this compare to the costs of the fires to Hiroshima or Nagasaki or great fires of Rome, London, Moscow, Smirna, etc, I do not know: I do not think we have enough data for such a comparison. Furthermore, I do not think any of the latter are known to be due to an act of arson at a single place. From what I know, the Great Fire of London was caused by an accident; nobody exactly knows the causes of the Great fires of Rome and Moscow. In the case of Smirna, opinions vary, but the sources I know point to multiple arsons at various locations, rather than a single act of arson. I think, this is one thing on which different sources agree in this case.
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