I suppose it was inevitable. For many days before the rains took the heat out of our summer, local fire fighters had been earnestly warning of the danger of furze fires breaking out on the island’s tinder-dry headlands.

Given the unpredictability of its course and the range of sitting targets in its path, fire is always spectacular and frightening when it breaks out. And in an island with a relatively small area of open land, just one outbreak can leave a disproportionately large scar.

So the effects of the latest blaze near Corbiere will remain a vivid warning to be prudent. Comparisons with the recent wave of fires in forest and heath land in the UK are hard to make.

They didn’t match the devastating infernos of Australia or Russia last year, but watching TV news film of the relentless tide consuming woodland and scrub provided distressing and frustrating images, both in terms of the effect on local flora and fauna, and that despite all efforts, so little could be done to arrest its progress.

However, the deepest contempt was fanned by the sight of individuals being led away by police on suspicion of having deliberately set the undergrowth alight.

So it was particularly salutary to learn from the recent report of the Jersey Fire and Rescue Service that deliberate fire-raising – that’s the criminal charge of arson – against motorcars or property, had risen 42 % last year.

Obviously, in a small island with, mercifully, a relatively low overall total, percentages look large, but it is a trend mirrored in Guernsey and the UK. It underlines the warning that playing with fire can have disastrous consequences. It’s a paradox, isn’t it? Those things which inspire excitement and pleasure, when pursued to extreme, bite the hand. None more than fire. Here’s an element which represents energy, sustenance and purification, yet we fail to comprehend its destructive effects.

In ancient times, setting light to your enemy’s crops or villages was a pretty effective way of doing him the utmost harm. In national commemorations earlier this year, the images of the wartime Blitz unleashed sixty years ago were rekindled along with memories of deliverance.

According to the local Fire and Rescue Service, one in seven house fires in Jersey is caused by carelessly discarded cigarettes, which makes for some pretty indictable statistics given that every casualty is preventable. Across the islands, every incident has innocent victims. In March, a young couple and their two young children narrowly escaped incineration in Guernsey, after the flat below them went up in smoke as a result of a fire started by a cigarette catching a bed alight.

It now seems inconceivable that that within very recent memory, personal fire-making – that is lighting up in public – was universally accepted, even ‘cool’. If you had the taste for it, you could strike a match in aeroplanes, cinemas, radio & TV studios, garages, even hospital waiting rooms, despite being surrounded by inflammable materials with the potential to endanger the safety of everyone around you. Then came the avalanche of health advice against smoking, followed by generations of increasingly restrictive legislation.

Smoking has been banned in offices, restaurants and other public places for four years, and while the exclusion of those who need a serial ‘puff’ may still appear as antisocial as their habit, the numbers of smokers has not radically diminished.

Nor has their determination to be allowed to pursue their passion in the confines of their ‘own space’. The motorcar is certainly a private environment in which good sense can easily fly out of the window – almost literally. I speak not of the persistent lunacy of the mobile-phone obsessive, more the blinkered faith of in-car invulnerability.

In what court does appealing to a driver’s better judgment in recommending a smoking-free interior constitute persecution? When the car in front of you inexplicably screeches to a halt in traffic straddling the busy junction by the Tennis courts in Georgetown and the driver leaps out into the middle of the road, vigorously brushing the front of her clothes to locate and remove the remains of a lighted cigarette while her child yells in terror from the bondage of its ‘safety’ seat, you have to wonder about the disconnect between, freedom, pleasure, commonsense and the legal framework.

So it’s not the indulgence itself, but the responsibility demanded when there are risks involved. The UK Government celebrated National No smoking Day this year by outlawing displays of cigarette packets in shops and cash points in an attempt to deter people – particularly young people from smoking.

From October, vending machines are to be banned from pubs, clubs and restaurants too. Heavens preserve us from the excesses of the ‘nanny state’, but the consequences of participation in antisocial, or potentially dangerous activities need to be fully spelt out in relation to the direct cost to individuals and the implications for others.

If not directly related to setting each other alight, there’s the longer-term consideration of the drain on national resources. Not surprisingly, there are those who contend that it’s iniquitous for government to justify slapping higher taxes on smokers – or drinkers, for that matter – in order to pay for extra health care without applying the same sanction to food scoffers. Obesity is now recognised as the greatest drain on the resources of the NHS – it is also self-inflicted. So why not impose punitive taxes on food?

The adage ‘no smoke without fire’ is as obvious as it is trite, but while there remains unfettered access to legal but lethal products, the arguments will persist over how to balance institutional regulation and individual responsibility.