Tag: wildfires

LA Mayor Karen Bass cut fire department funding by $17.6M — months before wildfires turned city into hellscape

The Los Angeles Fire Department had its budget cut by a staggering $17.6 million this financial year, records show — as fire crews continue to battle out-of-control blazes ravaging the City of Angels.

The drastic decrease in funding for the fire department was the second-largest cut to come out of embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass‘ 2024-25 fiscal year budget, according to city figures.

The police budget, meanwhile, increased by $126 million, a graphic shared by LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia shows.

Bass had initially wanted to cut the fire department by even more — a staggering $23 million.

The details on Bass’ budget slashing resurfaced as the mayor faced widespread backlash Wednesday after it was revealed she was away in Africa for the Ghana president’s inauguration — even as wind-whipped wildfires turned parts of her city into an apocalyptic hellscape.

In her absence, Bass found time to praise firefighters and other emergency crews for working “overnight to protect Angelenos affected by fires.”

Keep reading

San Bernardino wildfire started by suspected arsonist

A California man has been arrested in connection with the San Bernardino Line Fire, which has scorched tens of thousands of acres of forestland. The wildfire, which began last week, has led to significant damage and the evacuation of residents in affected areas.Justin Wayne Halstenberg, a 34-year-old resident of Norco, California, was taken into custody following an investigation by the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department into the wildfire that has resulted in over 34,000 acres being burned. 

“Highland Station detectives, in collaboration with Cal Fire investigators, identified Justin Wayne Halstenberg as the suspect who started a fire in the area of Baseline Road and Alpin Street in the city of Highland, also known as the Line Fire, on September 5, 2024,” said the sheriff’s office in a press release.

Halstenberg has been a delivery driver for FedEx since last year and previously worked at the US Postal Service, according to the New York Post. He is facing multiple charges, including arson of an inhabited structure, arson of forest land, and possession of flammable material.

Authorities have not provided further details on how Halstenberg is suspected of starting the fire. He is currently being held at San Bernardino’s Central Detention Center on $80,000 bail, with a court appearance scheduled for Thursday.

Keep reading

Disgraced Professor Sentenced for Action That Could Have Trapped Firefighters in Deadly Blaze

A former college lecturer on “criminal justice issues” is going to get some first-hand experience in the subject after he was sentenced to spend five years and three months in prison on Thursday.

Gary Stephen Maynard had pleaded guilty in January to starting a number of fires in California that could have had much more disastrous results than they did.

Maynard, 49, had formerly lectured at Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University, KCRA reported.

The former lecturer admitted to starting at least four fires in July and August of 2021, according to a Justice Department news release, and pleaded guilty to three counts of arson.

One count of arson was dismissed as part of a plea agreement, according to court records cited by The New York Times.

Maynard was charged with starting fires behind firefighters who were working to contain the Dixie Fire, which eventually destroyed more than 1,000 homes and spread over 1,500 square miles, according to KCRA.

“He intentionally made a dangerous situation more perilous by setting some of his fires behind the men and women fighting the Dixie fire, potentially cutting off any chance of escape,” Phillip A. Talbert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, said in a statement (available in full below).

It eventually grew to become the second-largest fire in California history, according to the outlet.

“Maynard faced the possibility of up to 20 years in prison and a $750,000 fine,” KCRA reported. “Besides the prison sentence of more than five years, he was ordered to pay $13,081 in restitution.”

His attorney argued that Maynard was “suffering from untreated and significant mental health issues when he set the fires and has sought treatment since then,” according to Fox News.

“A Santa Clara University colleague of Mr. Maynard, who was not identified, told the police in October 2020 that Mr. Maynard was struggling with anxiety, depression, split personality, and wanted to kill himself, the complaint said,” according to The Times.

Keep reading

Maui Fire Victims’ Families Offered Up to $1.5 million in Compensation if They Don’t Sue State Agencies

Over 6 months ago, a devastating wildfire swept through the Maui island town of Lahaina in Hawaii and incinerated much of the surrounding region.

Legal Insurrection readers may recall that a state water official delayed the release of water that landowners wanted to help protect their property from fires because water is to be revered and not used. Additionally, Hawaiian green energy mandates may have led Hawaiian Electric to divert fiscal resources away from fire-prevention practices.

There was also a delayed evacuation order.

A detailed timeline of events describes a series of calls to emergency dispatchers, reporting a fast-spreading fire at 2:55 p.m. Officers soon began evacuating neighboring areas, the report said.

But it does not explore the county’s delay before issuing a broader evacuation alert. The county made a decision not to use its all-hazards siren system and waited until 4:16 p.m. to send a cellphone evacuation alert. That alert was targeted at residential neighborhoods above the Honoapiʻilani Highway.

Fire had already consumed much of the area targeted for evacuation. At the exact time the evacuation alerts were going out, the new timeline shows, officers were reporting that the fire had spread all the way down to the highway and was jumping the road — toward waterfront areas that never received an evacuation alert.

Now, the relatives of fire victims could receive over $1 million in compensation…as long as they choose not to sue state agencies and companies involved.

Keep reading

Canadian man who claimed wildfires were a federal conspiracy admits arson

A Canadian man who claimed forest fires were the result of a government conspiracy has pleaded guilty to lighting more than a dozen blazes during the country’s record-breaking wildfire season, as nearly 100 fires persist in drought-stricken regions.

Brian Paré admitted to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life at the courthouse in central Quebec, an act that drew away key firefighting resources from nearly 700 fires in the province last summer.

Those blazes, which required the aid of international fire crews, charred more than 4.5m hectares of boreal landscape. Virtually all of those fires were caused by lightning strikes, the Quebec’s fire service says.

But at the courthouse in the town of Chibougamau, prosecutor Marie-Philippe Charron said on Monday two of the 14 fires lit by Paré forced the evacuation of 500 homes, the Canadian Press reported. The largest fire lit by Paré consumed nearly 873 hectares of forest.

Fire officials investigated a string of five blazes in June that had no possible natural cause and broke out days after the province had implemented a fire ban. The 38-year-old Paré quickly became a suspect when he was spotted in the location of the fires and “demonstrated a certain interest in fires” after an interview with police, said Charron.

In June police began watching his social media posts, which frequently focused on the province’s wildfires. He shared content suggesting the record-breaking fire season was the result of government intervention, not climate change. The prosecution said police specialists developed a suspect profile based on the fires – and increasingly, Paré’s seemed a match.

Police later obtained a warrant to install a tracking device on Paré’s vehicle and found he travelled to locations where other fires were started.

After he was arrested in September, he admitted to starting nine fires and “claimed he was doing tests to find out whether the forest was really dry or not”, Charron told the court.

Despite a string of conspiratorial theories over the summer, amplified by Alberta’s premier, nearly all of Canada’s fires were caused by lightning striking the tinder-like condition of forests.

Keep reading

Media Blackout: Black Curtains Go Up In Lahaina Blocking View of Ground Zero Investigation, Clean Up

Footage out of fire-ravaged Lahaina, Hawaii, shows crews have erected an extensive line of black curtains blocking citizens from seeing what’s going on as hundreds of people are still reported missing.

Video courtesy of citizen journalist Geoff Cygnus on TikTok depicts miles of fencing and curtains have been put up alongside Front Street, one of Lahaina’s main highways, obstructing the view of ongoing activities.

“There seems to be a huge emphasis on ensuring that the media and anyone else can’t see what’s going on,” Cygnus reported in a recent video.

Keep reading

Thanks to government, Maui’s Lahaina fire became a deadly conflagration

The most destructive natural disasters are never 100 percent natural. Human choices, land use, and government policies play a big role in how harmful hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flash floods, and wildfires are to the affected communities.

And after catastrophes like the wildfire that destroyed much of the historic Hawaiian city of Lahaina last week, it’s worth taking stock of how much of the disaster was the result not of natural or accidental factors, but of policies and institutions that can be changed.

Though details are still emerging, it’s becoming clear that government failure did much to make this disaster worse — and possibly even started it. While the so-called experts are blaming climate change — and in the process demanding that government grab even more power and authority ostensibly to someday give us better weather — the destructiveness of this fire was the product of an all-powerful and all-incompetent régime.

The specific origins of the fire are still being investigated, but there is much we already know. The city of Lahaina sits on the west coast of Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island. It is surrounded by grassland, much of which the state owns.

Nearly a decade ago the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a research nonprofit, warned the Hawaiian government that the area around Lahaina was extremely fire-prone due to frequent downslope winds, steep terrain, and dry grass. Little was done to address these risks. A subsequent report in 2020 added that an invasive species of exceptionally flammable grass was prevalent in the surrounding fields and that passing hurricanes created strong winds known to fuel wildfires on the islands.

Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii. By early Tuesday morning, August 8, winds as fast as sixty miles per hour were blowing down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains into Lahaina. Around sunrise, a large fault was detected in the power grid, indicating a downed power line. Twenty minutes later, the first reports of fire came in from the area around Lahainaluna Road, uphill and upwind from the city.

The area where flames were first spotted is full of electrical infrastructure, mostly operated by Hawaiian Electric, the state’s monopoly electricity supplier. This included a substation and a multitude of power lines. Most of the land in the area is owned by the State of Hawaii except for a parcel belonging to the estate of one of Hawaii’s last princesses. This parcel housed a solar farm supplying electricity to the Hawaiian Electric substation. Early last year, NPR published a glowing article about the solar project, praising it the direct result of government regulation crafted to help transition Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.

Keep reading

To Tackle Highest Housing Costs in the Country, Hawaii’s Governor Declares YIMBY Martial Law

The loss of life from the deadly wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui has been made even worse by the loss of shelter. Some 2,000 homes have been destroyed so far, leaving thousands more homeless or displaced.

The fire has only worsened an insufficiency of homes on the island and in the state more broadly. In Hawaii, median home prices are close to $1 million and regulations on adding new supply are incredibly strict.

Weeks before the fires, Democratic Gov. Josh Green had already proclaimed a statewide housing emergency with the purpose of slashing through all that regulation to get thousands of new homes built.

“We don’t have enough houses for our people. It’s really that simple,” said the governor at a press conference last month, where he promised “bold action to streamline processes for creating thousands of affordable housing units.”

Green is in fact taking bold action by suspending whole sections of state and local laws and regulations that relate to homebuilding.

Local governments are given far more flexibility to expedite housing approvals, while developers will have the chance to route around basically all existing regulations on home building to get housing projects approved.

It’s a radically deregulatory approach that’s received praise from across the political spectrum.

“This is probably the single most significant state-level action on accelerating housing production maybe in the whole country, maybe ever,” Sen. Stanley Chang (D–Honolulu) tells Reason.

Keep reading

A LOT of Coincidences Surround the Maui Fire That Destroyed Lahaina

Maui just suffered its worst disaster, with a death toll at 115 as of Thursday and nearly a thousand people still missing. While this loss of life is tragic in and of itself, as time goes by, more questions pop up.  How did the fires begin?  How did they get so out of control?  How come damage seemed to occur almost exclusively to the natives while celebrity estates in the area were miraculously unharmed?

Why was the governor almost immediately making plans for the land?  Why has media been so restricted in what they can report on?

Officials always start by blaming climate change whenever some sort of natural disaster occurs.  I always start by assuming incompetence, and there was certainly plenty of that to go around in this situation.

Keep reading

Maui, Yellowknife, Teneriffe, Rhodes: Who is Behind the Spate of Wildfires Caused by Arson?

The leftist media rushed to blame a series of devastating wildfires on “climate change”. Arson was involved in several cases, however, leading some observers to question the possible motives for the spate of blazes.

Terrrible tragedy struck the city of Lahaina on Maui on Aug. 8, with at least 144 dead and 1000 people still missing, including many children. Speaking on Daily Wire, pundit Michael Knowles said that arson is “the most likely culprit … apparently, in the mind of Hawaiian officials.”

“For years now, people have intentionally set fires all over Maui. As Maui Mayor Michael Victorino noted just last year, fire and police suspect someone is intentionally setting them. Just a couple weeks ago, Hawaiian police responded to two fires on Maui. One started by an unattended cooking fire, the other, apparently, intentionally set. Shortly after which point, according to investigators, quote, a male operating a green all-terrain vehicle was seen leaving the area.”

Last week, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated they had “charged four female youths with arson” after major wildfires around Yellowknife, Northwest Territory, Canada.

“Around 10:03 p.m., RCMP officers on patrol spotted a fire near Long Lake and called the Yellowknife Fire Department. The cause of the fire has been determined to be arson. A witness in the area reported seeing two men running from the area wearing black clothing. The Northwest Territories Police Dog Service attended in an effort to track the suspects but they were not located. No further description of the men could be provided and this matter remains under investigation. 

 At 11:21 p.m., the Yellowknife RCMP received a call reporting that four females were attempting to light a fire in a small green space on Burwash Drive. RCMP officers immediately attended the area and located the four youth females. RCMP arrested all four and found aerosol cans and lighters in their possession and near the scene. Video of this incident was captured on a nearby camera at a private residence. All four of the female youths have been charged with arson.”

Keep reading