Countless Fires in my Area

So the big news in the Hayfield/Blooming Prairie/Brownsdale area is the rash of fires that have been taking place. In the last week there has been at least 15 fires that the local fire departments have had to respond to. I knew about 6 of them because a couple happened close to our farm and to my grandparents' place, but I had no clue that there were as many as 15, especially with them all happening in such a short period of time.

A couple of the fires have been chalked up to it just being extremely dry out since we haven't had any rain in our area for a couple of weeks, but many of the building site fires have been classified as arson. It's a little scary knowing that there's people (my guess is some stupid-ass kids whose parents aren't watching them well enough) running around with the intention of lighting buildings on fire. The fires that have been classified as arson mostly revolved around the fires that involved abandoned building sites. I'm not sure if they've classified any of the fires at occupied residences as arson or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

I really hope that whoever is doing it gets caught asap. My grandparents' own an abandoned building site with a few barns on it and we're hoping that nothing happens to it. I also feel kind of bad for the fire departments in the area because they've been so busy. My brother has a teacher at school that is on the fire department and he's hardly gotten any sleep the last week because all of the fires have been happening in the evening. If I go to sleep tonight without there being any fires, this will be the first night in the last 8 that I've been able to go to bed without there being a fire somewhere in our area.

On a somewhat related note, I just finished watching the anime series Hellsing. It's an anime series about vampires, specifically an institution (the Hellsing Institute) that is vowed to wiping out the vampire and undead population of England. The interesting twist is that two of the Institute's members are vampires themselves. I had high expectations for this series going in and now after it is over, I'm somewhat fulfilled, yet also partially let down.

The animation of the series is superb and there are some great action scenes. These scenes don't hold back on the gore factor, though, so if you have a weak stomach, they're probably not going to be too enjoyable for you. The big disappointment for me is the storyline. The first few episodes don't play into the end of the story at all. I don't really know what their purpose is. The main arc of the series also doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I think this might be from a combination of way too many parties being involved in the plotline and some murky translation. In the end it comes down to a big vampire on vampire battle a la Dragonball Z, but not nearly as crappy. With the finishing of this series, and since I'm still on an anime kick at the moment, I think I'm going to watch the Bastard! series or maybe start Escaflowne.