The police arrested four men yesterday who may have been planning to start a fire around the Smildes. They were driving in two cars on a country road. Both cars were loaded with flammable material and jerry cans of fuel.
One of the cars also pulled a trailer tent that, according to the police, was already ready for demolition.
Three of the arrested men – two aged 19 and one aged 20 – come from the Frisian municipality of Ooststellingwerf and the fourth is a 20-year-old man from the municipality of Hoogeveen.
Several things have gone up in flames in recent days. For example, on the evening of Christmas Day, a trailer caught fire in Smilde, two days later the fire brigade had to extinguish a pile of conifers in Hoogersmilde and a car burned out twice in Smilde.
In Bovensmilde, a conifer hedge was destroyed and a trailer tent burned down. A boat burned down in Hoogersmilde last night.