Is this a metaphor?

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — A large forest fire that broke out at a remote monastic community where women have not been allowed for a thousand years spread Thursday to a nearby resort area, forcing the evacuation of a seaside vacation village and sending up a thick pall of smoke over the area.

The article also says:

It was not clear how the fire started Wednesday on the Mount Athos peninsula, a World Heritage site and self-ruled community of Orthodox monks that bans women — and even female animals — from entering.

When you have rules like that, stuff just bursts into flames. It's basic physics.

Why was this necessary?

I'm wildly irritated by something the police in Putnam County did. When a local family was killed in a fire, the son survived. His mother, father and two sisters died in the blaze. Turns out the fire was accidental.

So why did the police feel the need to hold a press conference to say that ashes from the surviving 20-year-old son's cigarette set the house on fire and killed his family? Why? The kid is already devastated. When they revealed this information to the public, they added significantly to the burden this young man has to carry for the rest of his life. I have no problem with the police telling him the truth in private, which they did. But why did the public need to know this? Now everyone thinks the fire was his "fault". It was an accident. From the story:

“He’ll count on the support of his family,” she said. “He’ll count on his faith. He’ll count on the support of the community.”

Well, he certainly can't count on society, which let him down big-time. Holding this press conference was a heinous, unreasonable action. There was no need to say anything beyond, "the fire was accidental; there was no criminality involved."

Our society has become so vicious and vindictive that I don't recognize it anymore. America used to mean something.