Tag: wildfires

Hawaiian Electric may have compromised evidence for fire investigation

There is suspicion that the utility company in Hawaii could have compromised evidence as part of the ongoing investigation to the cause of the fires, the Washington Post reported.

Hawaiian Electric is being blamed for an alleged role in starting the fire on the island of Maui in Lahaina and the center of the island. A video emerged of downed powerlines that could have sparked the fire.

A class-action lawsuit was filed less than a week after the fires, ABC News reported. According to the lawsuit, the utility company had documents showing that they were aware that preemptive power shutoffs like the ones used in California could help stop fires, but they refused to do it.

The Post cited documents showing that under the guise of restoring power, Hawaiian Electric removed “fallen poles, power lines, transformers, conductors and other equipment from near a Lahaina substation starting around Aug. 12.”

Investigators from he Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) arrived on the scene for their investigation after the objects had been removed.

“If a lot of equipment is already moved or gone by the time investigators show up, that’s problematic because you want to observe where the equipment was relative to the ignition site,” said Stanford’s director of Climate and Energy Policy Program, Michael Wara. “Maybe there was a homeless encampment, kids, or a power line down on the ground where the ignition occurred. But once you move these things it’s much harder to understand what happened.”

Hawaiian Electric spokesman Darren Pai released a statement saying that their company has been “in regular communication with ATF and local authorities and are cooperating to provide them, as well as attorneys representing people affected by the wildfires, with inventories and access to the removed equipment, which we have carefully photographed, documented and stored.”

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Maui Residents Burned To Death In Their Cars Because Of Barricades Blocking Escape

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that residents of Lahaina in Maui were prevented from escaped the horrific wildfire by barricades that were put up after electric polls were downed.

The report contains shocking details revealing that people were turned back by a crew as they attempted to flee, with several being burned alive in their cars or in the middle of the street as a result.

The report notes that some disobeyed the order and drove around the barricades, enabling them to escape and survive:

One family swerved around the barricade and was safe in a nearby town 48 minutes later, another drove their 4-wheel-drive car down a dirt road to escape. One man took an dirt road uphill, climbing above the fire and watching as Lahaina burned. He later picked his way through the flames, smoke and rubble to pull survivors to safety.

But dozens of others found themselves caught in a hellscape, their cars jammed together on a narrow road, surrounded by flames on three sides and the rocky ocean waves on the fourth. Some died in their cars, while others tried to run for safety.” 

One survivor noted that if she had obeyed the order to turn around she and her children would have been cooked alive:

“The gridlock would have left us there when the firestorm came,” said Cuevas-Reyes, 38. “I would have had to tell my children to jump into the ocean as well and be boiled alive by the flames or we would have just died from smoke inhalation and roasted in the car.”

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Speculation Swirls Over Reports Of Obama-Linked Hawaii Official’s Refusal To Release Water During Blaze

Hard questions are being asked about what role a Hawaiian water official connected to President Barack Obama had in delaying fire prevention measures that could have reduced opportunities for the Maui blaze to rapidly spread and take the lives of over 100 individuals.

M. Kaleo Manuel, a Hawaii water official and an “Asian Pacific Leader” with the Obama Foundation, gained notoriety in the days following the horrific fires after a previous video was unearthed showing the water throttler explaining his philosophy that water should not be seen as “something we can use” but rather an “earthly manifestation of a god.”

“Native Hawaiians treated water as one of the earthly manifestations of a god… So that reverence for a resource and reciprocity in relation is important to our well-being. Over time, we’ve become used to looking at water as something that we use, and not necessarily something that we revere,” said Manuel.

“If we can look as islanders at how we reconnect to those traditional value sets. My motto is, let water connect us and not divide us… It requires true conversations about equity.”

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Maui wildfires spark conspiracy theories about space lasers, Oprah land grabs and suspicious trees

The Maui wildfires have drawn bizarre conspiracy theories that elites — such as President Biden and Oprah — may have used lasers to intentionally set the deadly blaze for their own nefarious ends.

Photos claiming to show space lasers raining destruction down on the Hawaiian city have gained millions of views across social media, while images of trees still standing amid the inferno’s aftermath have been cited as evidence that the fires were not natural.

“Everything is burnt but the trees, but don’t point that out or ur a conspiracy theorist,” wrote one user on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, alongside footage of people driving through the cindered remains of a neighborhood.

But the unlikely internet sleuths’ hypotheses were easily debunked.

That post, along with others like it, was flagged by readers who linked to a Britannica article concisely explaining why the trees were still standing.

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Hawaii governor says state is looking to ‘acquire land’ that was destroyed in fires

On Monday, Hawaiian governor Josh Green announced that his administration was considering acquiring properties in the seaside resort town of Lahaina that had been destroyed by the recent wildfires.

He vowed to prevent foreign buyers from swooping in to exploit the tragedy, suggesting the state was better suited to take control of the land.

“I’m already thinking of ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to the people who were lost,” Green said while standing amongst the rubble.

“We want this to be something we remember after the pain passes as a magic place. Lahaina will rebuild. The tragedy right now is the loss of life. The buildings can be rebuilt over time, even the banyan tree may survive, but we don’t want this to become a clear space where then people from overseas just come and decide they’re gonna take it. The state will take it and preserve it first.”

In a separate press conference, Green reiterated his committment to ensure the land was protected for residents, and revealed that he had spoken with the Hawaiian attorney general regarding “options to do a moratorium on any sales of properties that have been damaged or destroyed.”

“It’s going to be a very long time before any growth or housing can be built, so you will be pretty poorly informed if you try to steal land from our people and then build here,” he said, adding, “I will try to allow no one from outside our state to buy any land until we get through this crisis and decide what Lahaina should be in the future.”

According to the Honolulu Civil Beat, over 2,000 structures were destroyed in the fire, three quarters of which were residential. Nearly 100 people have been found dead, though that number is expected to rise as crews continue searching the area.

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Majority in fires in Greece were started by ‘human hand’, official says

The majority of the fires which have ravaged Greece in recent weeks were started by “human hand”, one of the country’s top climate officials has said.

Greece’s climate change minister said 667 fires had erupted, as wildfires scorched hundreds of square miles of land outside Athens, on the island of Rhodes, and elsewhere this month.

Vassilis Kikilias told a news conference the vast majority of fires “were caused by human hands” and said they were “arsons either by criminal negligence or by intention”.

It comes as at least nine countries across the Mediterranean have been hit by wildfires, as extreme heat hitting the region has seen temperatures top 40C.

However, officials have also highlighted the role of climate change in the recent extreme heat across many European countries.

Mr Kikilias warned earlier that the climate crisis “brought us this unprecedented heatwave”.

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Despite Multiple Arson Arrests, MSM Continues to Blame Canada Wildfires on ‘Climate Change’

Despite the arrest of multiple arsonists, the mainstream media in Canada seems intent on attributing the nation’s recent wildfires to “climate change.”

As wildfires continue to spread across western, and now central and eastern Canada, burning forestland and homes, the mainstream media continues to imply that climate change is the main culprit, despite a growing number of reports showing that arsonists have been arrested for allegedly setting dozens of fires.

“Several arsonists have been arrested in the past weeks in different provinces for lighting forest fires,” People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier tweeted. “But the lying woke media and politicians keep repeating that global warming is the cause.” 

The severe nature of the wildfires has caused Canadians to wonder why they have spread so rapidly, especially as many of the affected areas are not typically impacted by wildfires of this degree or at this time of the year.

In the past months, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have arrested several arsonists who have been charged with lighting fires across several provinces including Nova Scotia, Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta. The motive behind lighting the fires is unclear.  

One Albertan, John Cook, has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of arson after setting a string of wildfires in and around Cold Lake, a hamlet near Edmonton. 

In addition to damaging vehicles and structures, Cook was charged with setting aflame the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Cherry Grove, Alberta. 

A Vancouver man charged with arson has been released until his trial on October 9, with Cpl. Michael Gauthier asserting that he is not a risk to light further fires.

“This incident was not random in nature and we do not believe there is risk to other members of the public or businesses from the individual who was arrested,” Gauthier stated.

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Here is a story that most people won’t see because it doesn’t push the radical left agenda. Wildfires are down 85% this year

Most years we hear a lot about wildfires in California. Instead of admitting they are cyclical and natural and that a significant number of them are caused because underbrush isn’t cleared, we are told that they are getting worse and are caused by humans and our abuse of natural resources.

From the following Wall Street Journal article: 362,403 acres burned this year in California versus 2.6 million in 2021 and a  2.2 million average the last five years.

My guess is most people won’t see that good news because it doesn’t scare people into submission to the radical green agenda to destroy America. They wouldn’t willingly give up their gas-powered vehicles and natural gas-heated homes if they were told that the climate is and has always changed cyclically and naturally. 

If the story came out, Governor Newsom would probably take credit for the massive reduction. As the WSJ writes:

One of the slowest wildfire seasons in years has come to an end in the West thanks to well-timed rain and cooler temperatures, bringing a reprieve to a region hit by numerous destructive blazes over the past several years.

The break is giving firefighters an opportunity to focus on prevention efforts such as thinning forests that could lessen damage from wildfires in the future, according to officials.

This year was a very mild year for hurricanes, many fewer than predicted.  Named storms only got to the letter “N”. Of course, the public didn’t get that good news. either. Instead, they were told the false information that the two significant hurricanes in Florida were made stronger by humans and our use of natural resources.

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US Government Starts New Mexico Wildfire, Tells Victims To Help Pay For Damages

The U.S. government started the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history this April, but is now asking victims to share in the recovery costs, according to Reuters.

U.S. Forest Service (USFS) officials lost control of two controlled burns in April, destroying 341,000 acres and 432 homes in northeastern New Mexico, according to MSN. President Joe Biden claimed that the federal government would cover “100% of the cost” of the disaster, but the disaster declaration ultimately only covered the cost of debris removal and emergency protective measures, leaving many victims stuck with programs that require buy-in to rebuild their houses and other necessary infrastructure, according to Reuters.

Examples of these programs include the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service and the USDA’s Emergency Forest Restoration Program, which require a 25% contribution from the affected landowner, a prohibitively expensive cost for many of the low-income farmers and ranchers in the area, Reuters reports.

Dan Encianis, a rancher from Tierra Monte, just 35 miles northeast of Santa Fe, was originally told by the USDA that he would see “little to no cost” for support to fix the well on his property before being asked to foot 25% of the bill, according to Reuters. Encianias was also told his application would not be processed until September, and work wouldn’t begin for six to 12 months after that.

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Feds Admit Starting Two Fires Now Merged Into Largest In State’s History

Two New Mexico wildfires now merged into the single biggest blaze in the state’s history were both started by a federal government agency, officials admitted Friday.

Both blazes were sparked by “pile burns,” fires set to get rid of wood and debris from thinning and reforestation projects, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Although those fires are meant to be controlled burns, in both cases they have raged out of the control of the Santa Fe National Forest Service. The two wildfires, the Calf Canyon Fire and the the Hermits Peak Fire, have now merged. Between them, they have burned more than 312,00 acres and destroyed nearly 800 structures, including hundreds of homes.

“The Santa Fe National Forest is 100 percent focused on suppressing these fires with the support of the Type 1 incident management teams who are fully prepared to manage complex, all-risk situations,” SFNF supervisor Debbie Cress said. “Our commitment is to manage the public lands entrusted to us by improving the forest’s resilience to the many stressors they are facing, including larger, hotter wildfires, historic levels of drought, rising temperatures, and insects and disease.”

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