I've been AWOL this week because of the wildfire situation in Oregon. On Monday our house was engulfed in a thickening pall of smoke. An alarmed neighbor called and told me that a wildfire was approaching rapidly, but his cell phone kept cutting out and I could only hear about every fourth word he was saying. So I spent the next hour after that trying to come up with a quick evacuation plan, without any verifiable information about what was going on. Finally I got in the car and drove around. I came to a flagman who told me that there had been a fire about three miles from my house, which fortunately had been contained and controlled.
However, the smoke continued to get worse. News reports said that the entire Willamette Valley was in similar condition, owing to a string of very large fires in the Cascades. Our house is about 25 miles from the western tip of the massive 160,000+ acre Holiday Farms fire.
So the reason I'm putting this in the QAnon thread, is that the buzz being promoted by QAnon and other Trump followers is that these Oregon fires were torched off by "Antifa" arsonists. The rumor was most prominently posted by Paul Romero Jr, who ran second in the Republican primary for US Senator. Romero claimed that six Antifa members had been arrested in Jackson County. This touched off a loud chorus of police departments and fact checkers and their Facebook followers, absolutely denying that Antifa had anything to do with it.
However, there are many apparently authentic reports about arson actions up and down the West Coast. Perhaps more than average for this time of year? Most of the arsonists have no obvious political connections or motivation, they're just ordinary folks who suddenly get an urge to play with firecrackers.
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/sources-series-of-wildfires-may-be-coordinated-and-planned-attack/?fbclid=IwAR1py5Viuh6wK5saFIhC0JmDcQ4hU6G71G1iTPch9fTNFdBlBPUwpfsucro
Contrary to rumors that have been circulating, there is currently no evidence to tie the wildfires to either far-right or far-left activists. And while investigations are underway into the causes of a number of the fires, we have been able to confirm that suggestions that Antifa members have been arrested are unfounded....
A number of wildfires in Washington, Oregon, and California are now being considered arson, and several arsonists are already in jail – while there are more on the run, we’re told.
On Wednesday, September 10, 2020, Troopers in Puyallup, Washington said they arrested a 36-year-old Puyallup man caught setting a fire in the brush. This was along State Route 167 in Puyallup in the median of SR 167 at Meridian. ...
Another arson suspect was arrested in Spokane after allegedly starting multiple fires.
Christine Comello,36, was arrested after allegedly starting multiple fires in Spokane on Monday. Officer Mohondro arrived on the scene where he witnessed some grass and a palette outside of a commercial business on fire. There was reasonable evidence the fire was started by a human and not lightning or telephone poles. ...
In Eugene, Oregan, Elias Newton Pendergrass, 44, was arrested on Tuesday. He was suspected of arson in a wildfire that that burned almost 400 acres, and caused evacuations west of Eugene. Pendergrass, a Mapleton resident, is accused of first-degree arson. ...
For all I know, maybe people are always interested in this kind of playful fun activity, and it's only in the news right now because the 40-MPH winds and 80-MPH gusts last Monday and Tuesday created a potential for every prank to become a conflagration. And the actual sources of the six gigantic wildfires threatening Portland, Salem, Eugene, Grants Pass, Roseburg and Medford are unknown.
It's also possible that this brief post belongs in the Global Warming thread. To pass along an assessment from meteorologist Nick Humphrey:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/climate-change-41564585?utm_medium=post_notification_email&utm_source=post_link&utm_campaign=patron_engagement
No, climate change doesn't literally start a fire. But climate change is a threat multiplier. It can make an area more likely to be hotter and drier more years than previously, drying out vegetation, making fire events more likely, and those events bigger than previous years/decades. A lightning strike, arson, or a gender-reveal party mishap starts the fire...but climate change sets the stage. Yes, land/forest management practices can also set the stage for bigger fires, like local heating of cities is also attributable to increasing urbanization and a warming heat island. But the rise in temperatures is a global phenomenon occurring and having a part in the equation, regardless of local changes to the landscape. It's not just one thing or another, as all anthropogenic changes add up. Climate change is just, by far, the biggest.
