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One of my favorite things in life is to read the crime report or as my local paper calls it the "Police Beat". Thankfully, with modern technology, I can read my little bits of crime online and jot down interesting stories. The main uptick lately is robbery.
Almost every story reported in the local paper is a robbery or attempted robbery. It can be a bank, a 7-11, or--believe it or not--a Taco Bell. There's muggings as well.
Why do real crimes matter?
They form a pattern. In those tiny snippets, you can learn about your area, what happens, and also, real crime. Like house fires. How many trucks come? How long does it take? What about the damage?
Now, house fires are interesting things. They are most common in the summertime (grills, old wiring, matches... you name it) and are often deadly. My neighborhood, which has a lot of older homes, suffered a rash of fires this year. One or two I actually witnessed. Another one, a few years back, I actually followed in the paper and went to the scene in person to view the damage.
While on the subject of house fires, I originally staged a car bombing to kill off a major character. After dismissing the implausible, I was left with creating a scenario that could feasibly be an accident--when it was actually murder.
One way to find newspaper articles is to Google search various topics such as "house fire" in a certain city or town or even state.
Here's a few examples using a city in my novels, Edgewater, MD. These are all articles from tv news stations. To actually find older newspaper articles in your area, visit your local library. Many have online subscriptions to newspaper archives or microfiche machines in main branches. But start your search online.
This the fire that occured around the time I was plotting "Sole Survivor". It also includes a video of the scene: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/23739451/detail.html
This is a different fire: http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/157241/373/One-Person-Reported-Dead-In-Edgewater-House-Fire
Go do some research. Read some newspapers (fun fact, in today's Washington Post, there was an article on a stolen horse near my old college which surprised me that it made a large paper) online or in print. Or watch the news. See what's happening in your community or in your novel's settings.
