San Francisco's Explosion of the Weekend Wasn't Made-For-TV Blast -- It Was This Brazen Tenderloin Arson

This weekend, all the cameras -- professional, amateur, and NBC -- were pointed at the I-280 onramp, where a big rig was rigged to burst into flames for the S.F.-centric TV drama Trauma.

The results were impressive. But they cannot touch, with an exploding, 10-foot pole, the bizarre arson and vehicular immolation reported this morning in the Tenderloin. Per the San Francisco Police Department:

00:36 -- ARSON: 100 block of 6th street. Victim is seated in a parked vehicle when victim sees suspect (BM 60) approach holding a "box on fire." Suspect throws lit box under victim's vehicle and runs away. Vehicle ignites and victim exits, runs away and calls 911. No injuries and arrests.

Good Lord, where to begin? A "box on fire"? Who perpetrates crimes these days with a flaming box? This sounds like something hearking to biblical Persia: "And, lo, Nebuchadnezzar flung his box of flames at the Hittites, and smote them to a man. No arrests were made."

Second, let's all put ourselves in the place of the victim for a moment. What could possibly have been going through his mind when he noticed a man approaching him holding a "box on fire"? This is as intriguing as it is terrifying.

Finally, it's good to know that the flaming box-wielding criminals in this city are still fit and limber enough to run from the scene at age 60. Certainly this is what our city fathers were thinking when they created the Healthy San Francisco program.