Seems well established that the death cult lit the fires themselves as death cults tend to when under pressure. From audio recordings inside the compound:
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6:01 a.m.: A combat engineering vehicle (CEV) hits the building and sprays bursts of liquified CS gas powder. A Hostage Rescue Team sniper sees green tracer rounds fired at the CEV from the compound. FBI commanders shift to their "compromise plan" and gas the entire building.
6:09 a.m.: Davidians discuss pouring something in a hallway. One asks, "David said pour it, right?" Another says, "David said we have to get the fuel on."
6:19 a.m.: Koresh says, "Nobody comes in, huh?" Someone answers, "Nobody comes in." "Allright. They got some fuel around here?" Koresh asks. Schneider says, "Yeah, everybody."
6:29 a.m.: FBI commanders report that a CEV accidentally cut the Davidians' telephone line.
7:08 a.m.: A man says, "Real quickly you can order the fire, yes."
7:21 a.m.: Amid talk of spreading fuel, a man says, "So, we only light it first when they come in with the tank. ...right as they're coming in?" "Right," someone replies. A voice calls, "We should get more hay in here."
Ever hear of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory? Terry Pratchett in the Discworld novel Men at Arms has the Vimes say:
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness"
I looked up a 1950s advertisement for similar boots and saw a pair for $12.95, plugged that and 1955 into the inflation calculator and it came out to $144.41. So not too far off really
John Adams, the 2nd President of the United States, once said
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
I figured (related to previous poster) that the lack of evidence of domesticated animals was a decent indicator that there were no big civs in the past interglacials
