Novato has been terrorized by 50 separate, small, suspected arson fires in the last three days, most of which have been in garbage cans or on small, four-square-foot patches of grass or brush. They've been concentrated in two distinct parts of the city, and the rapidity and proliferation of the incidents calls to mind the recent cat-and-mouse chase around Los Angeles for that suspected carsonist — albeit on a Marin-County scale with far less damage and far less actual drama.

We don't mean to make light of a potentially damaging and dangerous situation, but it's a little amusing that the scale of the fires has remained so tiny. The Marin Independent Journal has residents on the record saying things like "That's very dangerous stuff to be fooling around with," and they've got the Fire Chief warning that these fires "could have been deadly or caused serious damage." But they haven't.

The police still do not have a suspect.

[Marin IJ]