Read any major work on the Battle of Atlanta.
Confederate forces set fire to stores that they didn’t have transport to move in order to deny it to the Union forces (Standard Operating Procedure!). What’s unclear is if it spread into the city proper. Some historians say it did some say it didn’t, but clearly Sherman’s troops set their own fires also. The likely explanation is both contributed, one deliberately & one accidently.
Sherman has more historical markers in the Carolinas than anybody.
Regardless, the Confederates were acting out of martial necessity, the Union out of malice.