Tulsa greenhouse fire labeled arson

Four Tulsa boys are fortunate they're not in juvenile hall. Tulsa firefighters say the boys started a large fire at some abandoned greenhouses Sunday. <br/><br/>News on 6 reporter Jennifer Loren

Monday, April 10th 2006, 6:05 am

By: News On 6

Four Tulsa boys are fortunate they're not in juvenile hall. Tulsa firefighters say the boys started a large fire at some abandoned greenhouses Sunday.

News on 6 reporter Jennifer Loren has details about the fire and the unusual way the boys are being punished.

There is not much left of some abandoned greenhouses at 63rd and Mingo. Officials call them a nuisance property. Surrounded by apartments, kids constanly get into all kinds of trouble.

Tulsa Fire Captain Larry Bowles: "This is not our first incident out here. We've had smaller fires that were less significant than this and other types of calls out here."

Firefighters say they've asked the property owner to clean it up, but so far, no luck. That's one of the reasons investigators didn't arrest the four boys who started the fire.

The boys range in age from 11 to 16 years old and investigators say when they caught up with them, they were sorry. "They were extremely repenant. Their parents were extremely cooperative with us."

Instead of sending them to juvenile hall, firefighters are making the boys part of their juvenile fire setters program. "I think that we got our original message clear to these boys and we will be following up with some further instruction and education on them."

Fire Captain Larry Bowles says these kids are so lucky this fire wasn't worse because if you look around you can see there's plenty of junk that could have made this fire huge. "The fact of the matter is that arson is very dangerous. Had one of our firefighters been injured or killed battling this blaze it would've been an entirely different thing."

The boys may have escaped criminal charges this time, but fire officials say if they ever get into trouble again, this incident will show up on their records.