Arson attacks have surged by up to 380 per cent in five Victorian council areas over the past decade, and the crime has becomes so common that police are issuing alerts to firefighters in advance of targets being hit.
asserted
targets → surge → advance
The unprecedented rise of firebombings as an everyday weapon of intimidation and revenge means that, on average, nearly 10 fires are being deliberately lit every day, leaving police and fire services scrambling.
asserted
fires → mean → police
More than 23 businesses, homes and cars have been targeted in just over a fortnight in October as teenagers are being used to unleash Victoria’s latest crime wave.
asserted
teenagers → target → wave
Organised crime gangs’ methods of recruitment are rudimentary but effective – police intelligence suggests one recently arrested middle man had access to up to 2000 foot soldiers.
uncertain
man → suggest → soldiers
The pace of incidents is now nearly as bad as the darkest days of Victoria’s “tobacco war” from 2023 to 2025, although fire as an instrument of terror and intimidation is now being used widely against homes, cars, retailers and restaurants.
asserted
fire → use → homes
A firefighting source, who cannot be identified publicly, said police were now sometimes issuing alerts to firefighters in advance – called a “pre-warning” – that a target somewhere in their service area could soon be hit.
uncertain
target → identify → area
New data obtained by this masthead from the Crime Statistics Agency shows arson offences have soared nearly 75 per cent since a decade low in 2021.
asserted
offences → obtain → 2021
“This is how fights are waged now, how messages get sent,” said an organised crime detective, who cannot be publicly identified.
asserted
who → wag → ?
“It can cost next to nothing to send someone out to stage a firebombing – there’s that many kids willing to do it.
asserted
It → cost → it
“Doesn’t matter how dangerous it might be, that’s not a consideration for these people.
uncertain
that → matter → people
And finding out whose responsible is getting very, very difficult.”
asserted
responsible → find → ?
The new surge in targeted arson attacks ignited from embers first struck in 2022, which fuelled a “tobacco war” that claimed five businesses a week during its 2025 height, before the tactic was more widely adopted by criminals across the state.
asserted
tactic → target → state
Analysis of more than 29,000 arson offences between June 2017 and June 2026 emphasises just how targeted and calculating arsonists have been.
asserted
arsonists → emphasise → June
While overall arson offences have only increased by 11 per cent in Victoria over the past decade, attacks on retailers have soared by almost 140 per cent.
asserted
attacks → increase → cent
Clear geographical hotspots have also emerged.
asserted
hotspots → emerge → ?
Arson attacks have more than doubled in the Melbourne, Port Phillip, Monash and Stonnington local government areas, while rates have also spiralled in Wellington, Maribyrnong and Darebin.
asserted
rates → double → Wellington
Stonnington recorded a 385 per cent increase in arson attacks over the decade to June 2026, with 34 incidents in that year alone as criminal gangs turned their attention on nightspots as part of the so-called bar wars.
asserted
gangs → record → wars
In 2016, only one in 56 arson offences involved the type of business typically involved in the tobacco trade, including shopping complexes, convenience stores and small retailers.
asserted
one → involve → complexes
But in the decade that followed, the rate of businesses being targeted has increased, now accounting for one in every 15 arson offences.
asserted
rate → follow → offences
The “tobacco war” ignited in March 2023 after rising gangland figure Kazem “Kaz” Hamad began to form a “cartel” to control the illicit cigarette market, with rivals and resisters attacked in waves of fire bombings that compelled operators to pay an extortion “tax” to operate and stock the syndicate’s smuggled product.
asserted
that → ignite → product
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission said it identified more than 200 arson attacks nationwide linked to the illicit tobacco trade between 2023 and early 2026.
asserted
it → say → 2023
The vape advocacy group ALIVE puts the figure at nearly 300, based on an analysis of nationwide media reports.
asserted
group → put → reports
Crime Statistics Agency data reveals that the conflict inside the illicit tobacco market began even earlier than most estimates, in 2022, when fires at tobacco-related businesses more than doubled.
asserted
fires → reveal → businesses
They rose from 47 in 2021, to 102 in 2022, despite there being no simultaneous increase in arson at other types of businesses or locations.
asserted
They → rise → businesses
In these early days, more than a half dozen crime gangs – including a number of prominent Middle Eastern organised figures, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and ambitious start-up players – were beginning to use violence to corner parts of the state’s rapidly expanding market.
asserted
gangs → include → market
They were also turning to vulnerable kids to do their dirty work, increasingly using encrypted messaging and online recruitment to groom an ever-expanding network of troubled, and then cleanskin, teens to light their fires.
asserted
They → turn → fires
Victoria’s Commission for Children and Young People had already warned in 2021 of growing concerns over the criminal exploitation of children.
asserted
Commission → warn → children
It had recommended the government and Victoria Police commit to a specialist joint, targeted and statewide response to stop young people in residential care being groomed, but the request went nowhere.
asserted
request → recommend → care
Despite Kingston not recording a single arson at tobacco retailers in the previous five years, 19 businesses in the area were suddenly hit in 2022.
asserted
businesses → record → 2022
The rate of tobacco-type retailers being targeted remained high throughout 2023, before surging by almost 50 per cent in 2024.
asserted
rate → target → 2024
In July, the firebombing of a tobacco shop in Richmond destroyed nearly a dozen neighbouring shops along Victoria Street in what has been one of the most damaging attacks to property of the more than three-year-old “tobacco war”.
asserted
what → destroy → war
Containing the blaze took 80 firefighters and 25 trucks.
asserted
Containing → contain → firefighters
Retailers in Melbourne, Merri-bek, Whittlesea and Brimbank bore the brunt, with each of the local government areas suffering at least a doubling or tripling of businesses being targeted that year.
asserted
each → bear → businesses
When the war spread to restaurants in 2025, attacks in central Melbourne doubled again.
asserted
attacks → spread → Melbourne
During 2025, 23 Melbourne tobacco-connected businesses and restaurants were torched – up from just three in 2023.
asserted
businesses → connect → 2023
Arson attacks on businesses in Hume, Dandenong, Geelong, Maribyrnong, Whitehorse and Melton also surged, as 263 tobacco-type retailers and restaurants were razed in 12 months.
asserted
retailers → surge → months
The “tobacco war” accelerated a trend that was already becoming embedded in the wider criminal milieu that had come to regard arson as a cheaper and simpler method of warning, intimidation and retaliation than gun violence.
asserted
that → accelerate → violence
A jerrycan costs as little as $20 to buy and its contents less than $10.
asserted
jerrycan → cost → 20
As a result, criminal flames have spread well beyond illegal tobacco stores.
asserted
flames → spread → stores
Deliberately lit house fires doubled between 2017 and 2026, though the increase is focused on the Monash, Darebin, Greater Dandenong and Yarra Ranges local government areas.
asserted
increase → light → areas
…and 20 more, not listed.
The Aporia
