The mother of a six-year-old boy accused of starting a fire in a Winnipeg house earlier this week says she believes peer pressure is behind her son's firebug behaviour.

Patricia, whose last name is not being used to protect her son's identity, is a single mother caring for four children: two-year-old twin girls, and two boys, ages six and nine.

"It's a handful — very, very hard — but I take it day by day," she said Thursday in an exclusive interview with CBC News.

The Alfred Avenue house that burned was the family's previous home, just a block away from their current home. (CBC)

Her six-year-old son is one of three boys accused of setting a fire in a vacant house on Alfred Avenue in the North End on Monday, causing an estimated $170,000 in damages.

Patricia's family had just moved out of the house damaged in the fire; it is located less than a block from her new home.

The day the fire happened, Patricia said, she knew her two boys were playing in the yard of their former home.

"I was walking by there, and I seen them playing there," she said. Later, a neighbour told her the house was on fire.

"Right away, it clicked that my boys were playing in that area. Right away, I knew something was up with the boys. I knew right away they were involved," she said.

"It was very scary. I was standing there crying, figuring the boys were inside there and figuring I could do nothing about it."

Once she found her boys safe, she asked them if they knew what happened. They said no.

Around lunchtime the next day, police picked up her six-year-old and a seven-year-old friend on the property of the fire-ravaged house. Police said they were trying to start another fire, this time to the garage.

'I can't be with them 24/7'

Officers took the boys in and found a third child believed to be responsible; he's nine. Criminal Code charges cannot be laid against children under 12.

All three boys were referred to the Youth Firestop program, which attempts to determine why a child is setting fires, then arranges for educational programming or other assistance to put an end to the behaviour. Police also spoke to them personally, Patricia said.

"They were firm, and they talked, and let him know he was in the wrong and the damage that he could've done and the people that he could've hurt," she said, adding that she has asked that her nine-year-old also be allowed to go to the Youth Firestop program.

Patricia said she doesn't know how her son obtained access to a lighter or matches, and said he has never done anything like this before. She feels part of the problem is pressure from other children in the area, where she said arsons happen all the time.

"I get all these calls saying, 'Why aren't you watching your boys?' I'm trying my best. I can't be running around with my twins and chasing my boys around at the same time," she said.

"I've run into a few people and they say, 'Don't you think you should be charged for your kid's actions?' And I says, well, I'm at home with my twins right now. I'm a single parent of four children. I can't be with them 24/7."

Curiosity behind most children's fires

Patricia said she's putting both her sons in after-school programs, "to keep them off the streets, and keep them occupied and out of trouble."

She said she and her son are both sorry for what happened.

Brandy Maslowski, who runs the Youth Firestop program, said children light fires for a variety of reasons.

"About 80 per cent of the kids we deal with are doing fire-setting out of curiosity," she said.

"Then there's the definite and extreme concerns, where there might be something happening in their life or an issue that they're trying to deal with that they're not capable of dealing with, that's causing them to act out and cry for help."

About 300 children under age 18 went through the program in 2007.

So far this year, police have apprehended 70 minors suspected of arson. Twenty-four were under age 12, including a 10-year-old boy who was implicated in more than 30 fires, and a five-year-old who is believed to have ignited a fire Thursday in a house on Logan Avenue.