![]() ![]() Faulty PG&E equipment has been determined as the cause of hundreds of fires in recent years and the company has pleaded guilty to dozens of counts of manslaughter for its role in the Camp Fire. The Camp Fire was actually sparked by the utility company Pacific Gas & Electric. “Taking the time to complete a thorough and accurate investigation will help squash that misinformation.” We’ve heard anything from it was a meteor shower to … a group of arsonists,” Muschetto said. “With any large fire we will see a lot of speculation about the cause and people will throw out a lot of things. Those rumors complicated the emergency response, inspiring vigilante acts and armed patrols in towns overcome with fear over rumors of antifa arson attacks.Īfter the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, false rumors spread online that the blaze was sparked by a laser in space to make way for California’s high-speed rail project, a narrative that Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a House representative from Georgia, helped to spread.Ĭal Fire tries to release information about the causes of fires as quickly as possible, but those investigations can take months or even years, Muschetto said, and during that period misinformation can spread. ![]() As fires raged in the Pacific Northwest last year, social media platforms saw a wave of disinformation about their origin, with baseless rumors spreading that the fires were lit by antifa or by far-right groups. Misinformation about the origins of fires is often spread by conspiracy theorists capitalizing on the complex nature of the crisis. ![]() Some users accused arsonists of attempting to destroy parts of the state they don’t like, or speculated that arsonists are being paid to start fires. “There is your climate change Governor quit selling lies and start dealing with the real problem,” another said. “So it’s not climate-related after all?” one Butte county resident asked in response to a post about the arrests. ![]() In online community groups in fire-prone northern California, some residents this summer pointed to the cases as proof that the climate crisis is not in fact driving increasingly destructive blazes. I think for some people it’s easier if there’s a human villain, a specific person, whereas in reality that’s almost never the case. “It doesn’t matter what the data or statistics actually show,” Swain said. Still, news about the few arrests travel far and wide. “I think for some people it’s easier if there’s a human villain, a specific person, whereas in reality that’s almost never the case. There are forest management policies that have left the land overgrown with fuel, the climate crisis, which is creating conditions ripe for more extreme fire behavior, and urban expansion – the movement of people into wild areas prone to burn. The actual issues driving the state’s wildfires are complex and can’t be boiled down to one single factor, Swain said. “The last few years have still been in that statistical norm of 6% to 10%.” “We’ve had some more success with the number of arrests we’ve made, but we haven’t seen a significant jump in the number of arson fires,” said Gianni Muschetto, the staff chief of Cal Fire’s law enforcement division. The state’s firefighting agency has said arrests have increased in the last two years from 70 in 2019 to 120 in 2020, but that the number of arson incidents hasn’t significantly changed. In 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, arson was found to be the cause of about 9% of the 3,086 fires Cal Fire responded to, and responsible for 2% of all acres burned that year. But arson – the criminal act of deliberately setting fire to property – isn’t all that common. Most wildfires are started by humans – downed powerlines, an unattended campfire, a flat tire that sends sparks into dry brush. The arrest of Gary Maynard, a former criminal justice professor who allegedly went on a fire-setting spree near Lassen National Forest in an effort to trap crews fighting the Dixie Fire the month before, prompted warnings about the “ potent threat” of an arsonist’s match as the state grapples with megafires. This story was originally published by the Guardian and is republished here through the Climate Desk partnership.Īs California endures another grueling wildfire season, the charges against two alleged arsonists this summer attracted widespread attention.Īlexandra Souverneva, a former doctoral student and yoga teacher, made tabloid headlines in September when she told investigators suspecting her of causing the Fawn Fire that she had tried to start a fire to boil water she thought contained bear urine. ![]()
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