The Long Dangerous, Twisted Journey Of The Alleged Arsonist Of The Destructive Spokane Wildfires

Devastating scene in Spokane, Washington 
after the fires. An arsonist set the fire. The
alleged suspect has quite a history of 
crime, arson and mental illness. 

 Aaron Farinacci, the man arrested and charged with the worst of the devastating Spokane wildfires, allegedly has a history of setting fires around the city.  This one just happened to be by far the worst. 

The more information that comes out, the more court hearings we have, the more we learn that Farinacci appears to be a dangerous and deeply troubled man. 

He is charged with setting the largest and most destructive wildfire in Spokane. But court records indicate he has a history of setting fires. He giant Spokane fire was just by far the worst one he set. I  

The AP paints a vivid picture of how the horrible wildfire began: 

"On Saturday, Paul Child, 64, was driving with his grandson along some railroad tracks in his rural neighborhood northwest of Spokane. He saw a man standing and looking toward nearby trees. About 10 minutes later, as they were returning home, the man was still there.

'He was bent over in the brush, acting nervous,' Child told the Associated Press on Tuesday, 'You get the feeling this guy's up to something.'

"No longer than 10 minutes after I got home, my daughter says, 'There's a fire,'" Child called. My first words were 'That SOB started a fire!," it was the exact spot where he was standing.'"

As noted in a previous blog post,  a responding sheriff's deputies found the man matching the description Child offered walking more than a mile away from the fire's ignition point. Child arrived and basically said, "That's the guy."

Farinacci was wearing a green t-shirt that read, 'Who needs luck I have charm,"  In his backpack and fanny pack, he had cigarettes, waterproof matches and a butane lighter. 

He told deputies when he was arrested he didn't set the fire and was not anywhere near where the blaze started. The deputies were unaware of Farinacci's past suspicious activity with fires, and they were busy coordinating evacuations, so they let him go.

By Monday, August 3, investigators knew the fire was deliberately set, and the arrest was made. 

Farinacci haas quite a history anyway.  He served about a decade in prison for killing his father 16 years ago in Arizona. He was 21 years old at the time, and the shooting stemmed from an argument with his father over doing the dishes.  

 As KREM reports, Farninacci shot his father once in the face as he entered his room, the again in the back as the father turned to leave. He later died at a hospital.

Farinacci ran from the house and shot himself in the chest with the same gun he used on his father.  Farinacci later told police the shooting was an accident and told them he "deserved to be sentenced to prison as he took someone's life."

KREM continues: "He was convicted of manslaughter and aggravated assault in 2012. He was released from prison in 2020, and records show that he was discharged from probation in 2024 while living with a girlfriend in Washington State."  

Farinacci, 37, is suspected of setting several fires, each of which only covered areas about the size of buses. Another fire last August that he might have started blazed through a state park prompting evacuations, though no houses burned, according to the Associated Press.

During a court hearing Thursday, Angust 6, Judge Jeremy Schmidt found probable cause to charge Farinacci with four additional counts of arson for fires the suspect told a detective he's set since last summer. 

If detectives, prosecutors and court papers are accurate, Farinacci is a scary dude with potentially serious mental issues. Even if you don't include the time he shot his father

As KREM reports: "He told detectives his son was born in May, 2025 and he was 'having trouble dealing with life issues.'  A detective who interviews Farinacci wrote, "He feels fire is powerful, beautiful, and that things that go through fire experience a kind of rebirth."

Detectives said Farinacci admitted to starting 25 fires since last July. He's only been charged with four of them because detectives couldn't corroborate that information. One of the fires he's suspected of starting was on in July, 2025 which burned more than 1,200 and threatened some homes.

Investigators said Farinacci that "'Who needs luck I have charm" t-shirt when he set a fire on August 11, 2025.

Six days before the big conflagration, on July 24, Farinacci said what he started what is known as the Indian Bluff Fire, which ultimately harmed no homes. 

By July 31 Spokane and the rest of eastern Washington was under a particularly dangerous red flag warning, meaning the risk of wildfires the next day would be extremely 

Farinacci was paying attention to the weather forecasts. He'd waited at least a couple weeks for a day with high winds, hot temperatures and low humidity. He also said he researched other arsonists and ways to create time delay devices for setting wildfires, KREM reported.

If that's true, he weaponized weather warnings meant to protect the public. This raises another issue. There's absolutely no evidence Farinacci was involved in weather betting.

On-line prediction markets like Polymarket allow people to bet on the outcome events, like elections, sports and other occurrences. 

"It's not just easy to start a fire - now there's a potential financial incentive," said Kaitlyn Trudeau,  a California-based climate scientist with Climate Central. 

For example, as High Country News points out Polymarket list nearly 20 questions to be on during the January 2025 Los Angeles area wildfire calamity.  

The questions included "How many acres will the Palisades Fire burn by Friday? Will the Palisades Fire reach Santa Monica by Sunday? When will the Palisads fire be 50% contained?"

You can see the logical next betting question is, "How big will the next wildfire get during the next red flag warning." And you can see how somebody might start a fire so they can win big with the online gambling. 

In any event, on that dry, windy August 1, the alleged arsonist said the picked the spot where he set the big fire because he knew it would be bad, though he didn't intend for the blaze to get as big as it did. He placed a time delay device in the dry grass.

Those hundreds of Spokane area homes were now doomed. Residents will be picking up the pieces for a long time. 

The Associated Press said that the other two major fires around Spokane on August 1 were started by humans, but officials didn't say whether the fires were intentional or accidental.  

Meanwhile, while most other fires across the West were started by lightning or human accidents, some are being investigated as arson. One horrible very mentally ill people can wreck the lives of so many others. 

Spokane Becomes The Latest City Victimized By Climate Fires. More Surely To Come, Unfortunately

A woman rushes her dog away as her house burns down
Saturday during the Spokane wildfire. She reported lost
other pets in the blaze,

Spokane, Washington has joined the sad list of American towns and cities mowed down by marauding wildfires in recent years. 

Fort McMurray, Alberta in 2016. Gatlinburg, Tennessee, also in 2016. Paradise, California in 2018. Lytton, British Columbia in 2021, the Boulder, Colorado area, also in 2021. Lahaina, Hawaii, 2023. Pacific Palisades and Altadena, California in 2025.

It's been quite a decade for fires blasting through North American towns and cities. The above is only the highlight. Numerous other smaller towns have lost many of their homes and businesses in other fires

Now, it's Spokane.

In just an afternoon and evening on August 1, more than 600 homes burned down in and around Spokane. Once again, we saw the horrible scenes of hasty evacuations, roads clogged with cars with panicked, fleeing families inside. 

History has other big fires smashing through towns of course. A wildfire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin that killed perhaps 2,000 people. 

An 1881 fire in Michigan killed 282 people.  An 1894 Minnesota wildfire killed more than 400 people. And in 1910 the so-called Great Fire swept through five million acres in Idaho, Montana and Washington. 

These urban firestorms seemed to calm down in much of the 20th century. Sure there were a few, like the Oakland-Berkeley  Hills firestorm in 1991, which killed 25 people. But too many of us assumed we had conquered the threat of a wildfire plowing into a town or a city

But now they're back. Especially over the past decade, as we noted.

WILDLAND-URBAN INTERFACE

One problem is the wildland-urban interface. More and more people are moving into woodsy areas as suburbs expand into once unpopulated areas. The appeal is obvious: A beautiful forest in your backyard, wildlife wandering by. It's hard to resist. 

The wildland-urban interfaces or WUI's, are not just in the western states. The states with the most houses in WUIs are California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

There's always talk of adaption in these zones, to keep the house from burning.  Clear the brush and the trees away from the houses. Clean the gutters. That kind of thing. But judging from the way the ravaged neighborhoods in Spokane appeared.you can't fully adapt yourself out of extreme wildfires. 

The neighborhoods that burned were typical suburbia. Nice lawns, flower beds. Scattered decorative trees. The flammable pines and spruces safe in the background. Or so you'd think. 

Under normal circumstances, when a single house goes up in flames, due to an electrical problem, clumsy kitchen cooking, an unattended candle, a small army of firefighters arrive. Neighboring houses get soaked down so they don't burn, too. 

In wildfires, there's never enough personnel to protect every home. The entire forest behind the neighborhoods is on fire. Embers are everywhere, setting fire to the old leaves in the gutters, sneaking into the attic vents, setting the area beneath the roof on fire. The pretty decorative cedar against the foundation - dried out by months of drought - bursts into flames amid the sparks. That blaze quickly sets the house on fire.

On and on the fires go, hopscotching from one house to the next. In the end, in Spokane, at least 700 houses succumbed. That's how it works in the wild land-urban interface.

DRY WEATHER/CLIMATE CHANGE

We knew there would be trouble in eastern Washington on Saturday. It's been building since this past winter. Unprecedented warmth and a lack of snow meant the landscape dried out much earlier in the spring than it usually does. 

It doesn't rain much during the summer in eastern Washington. Normally June precipitation is 1.17 inches in Spokane. This year, Spokane received just 0.26 inches. The city usually gets just under a half inch of rain in July. This year, there was only a trace.

The area is absolutely arid at this point. This weekend a dry cold front passed through the region. West winds with the cold front gained momentum as they raced down the east slopes of the Cascade mountains, drying out as they did so, 

The smallest sparks erupted in to firestorms on Saturday, and the disaster landed.  

By Sunday, 920 firefighters were battling the blazes in and around Spokane. That number was expected to rise to 2,000 during this week. More than 65,000 people had been evacuated, with no word yet on when all of them will go home. 

The weather forecast across the Pacific Northwest is discouraging. The wind has diminished, but it will remain dry and hot for the foreseeable future. Winds are expected to increase this coming weekend, but they won't be as strong as they were last Saturday. 

 It's no coincidence that these urban and suburban wildfires have increased over the past decade. It's not just the wildland-urban interface.  Spokane is a great, sad example. Climate change helped make the winter warmer, the summer drier. You see it over and over again. Paradise, California hit because the winter rains were late. Same thing happened in Altadena in 2025. 

Climate change has made things so much more extreme. So much more predictable. And this summer, the extreme weather continues, given an added boost by a wildly strong El Nino.

The fires near Spokane, in the rest of Washington State and the West overall will burn indefinitely. Probably until the winter snows fly. 

LOUSY CONDITIONS/LOUSY PEOPLE

Spokane wasn't the only wildfire problem. As of Sunday, seventeen major fires encompassing 260,000 were burning across Washington. In Oregon, wildfires have burned more than 2 million acres, by far the most acreage on record. August and September tend to be the peak fire season in Oregon. 

The record for an entire fire season - set in 2024 - is about the same as what has burned so far this year in Oregon

On Saturday, the wind and the dry air around Spokane and other areas of the Northwest made fighting the fires impossible. They basically morauded unimpeded through forests, scrublands and finally neighborhoods, 

 "There is not a fire department in the United States that can handle a wind-driven event this size," said Assistant Spokane Fire Chief Lance Dahl. 

The spikes in wind over the next couple of months will likely lead to more homes burned this year. Maybe not hundreds at a time like in Spokane but enough to hurt many, many more families. 

The end result of this conflagration in Spokane was so many moments of normal daily life cruelly interrupted. Per the Spokane Spokesman-Review:

"Signs of children lingered on sidewalks where hopscotch was chalked. Stone stairs that once led to a wraparound porch led to nothing Smoldering foundations were still hot enough to melt shoes."

At one, the homeowner found nothing salvageable except for a muffin tin. At another house, it was complete devastation except for a koi pond. The fish in the pond somehow survived. At yet another destroyed home, a father instructed his son to take a brick from the house as a memento. He'd already done that. 

The most infuriating thing about the Spokane disaster is its apparent cause - arson. On Monday, Aaron Farinacci, 37, was arrested in Spokane for allegedly starting the Old Trails Fire, the largest and most destructive of three large fires in and around the city.  

As NBC News reports, the fire began at around 10 a.m. Saturday A witness told police the saw the man looking into the trees an was later seen crouching at the side of the road near some grass before he "stood up and looked very nervous" and walked away, said Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels .

Police detained Farinacci Saturday about a half mile from where the fire started. He had waterproof matches and a butane lighter on him. Authorities let Farinacci go, apparently mostly because the most important job at the moment was understandably evacuating people hastily. 

On Sunday, investigators determined the Old Trail Fire started exactly where the witness saw Farinacci crouching, leading to Monday's arrest. At last check he's being held on $1 million bond.

So far, I haven't seen a motive for the arson. 

Farinacci is (allegedly!) the worst but not only horrible idiot associated with the fires. We saw at least 26 incidents of people flying personal drones over the fires. That mean officials had to ground air support for safety reasons, hurting the firefighting efforts. 

By the way, flying drones over an emergency zone is a federal crime. 

In Oregon, the Jefferson County Sheriff's office are warning boaters on Lake Billy Chinook could be completely shut down for recreation if people don't stop interfering with firefighting efforts. Onlookers have repeatedly gotten too close to planes and helicopters as they scoop water from the lake to fight nearby fires, Central Oregon Daily News reported.  

Goons are watching the fires, for afar, too, coldly trying to make money off the blazes. These days you can bet on anything. 

Prediction marketshare allowing people to place bets on wildfires. 

According to OregonLive:

"In a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates prediction markets, Sens. Ron Widen and Jeff Merkley joined lawmakers from other wildfire-stricken states in urging the agency to crack down on wildfire-related contracts. The group warned the markets could create financial incentives for arsons and criticized what they described as profiteering from disasters affecting vulnerable communities."

Reportedly, the 2025 Los Angeles fires prompted more than $1 million in wagers. Since then the betting market has grown exponentially. 

THE REST OF US

As is always the case with these big wildfires, it becomes everybody's problem. Thick smoke is billowing across the Pacific Northwest, set to create intense air pollution in cities like Portland, Eugene, Vancouver and Seattle.

 The smoke, combined with smoke from dozens of other western wildfires is drifting across the nation. Virtually everyone across the continental U.S. is either experiencing occasionally hazy skies and smoke, or will soon.

So, our lungs will once again suffer the consequences. 

As we've already noted, these huge wildland-urban interface wildfires have become disconcertingly common. Pretty much every year now. The droughts, the heat, the weird extremes brought on by climate change continue to take their toll.

Sadly, there's plenty of time for another Spokane this summer and fall.  There are so many towns and cities in California, Oregon, Washington and other western states that are sitting ducks for these kind of extreme wildfires 

Climate change won't stop anytime soon. It's another new normal in our abruptly hotter world. Some parts of the world are taking serious steps to combat climate change. The United States meanwhile, remains completely unserious about the problem.  

The money from the fossil fuel industry is too tempting for our so-called leaders. Too many Americans are willfully ignorant, as they prattle on about chemtrails and conspiracies and shrill references to an irrelevant hot spell in the 1930s. 

Nobody deserves to have their home burn down in a wildfire of course. Including those who say climate change is a hoax. But unfortunately, these firestorms will continue. Denial or not.  

Vermont's Jay Peak, Not Open For Season Yet, Dealing With Too Much Of A Good Thing

Jay Peak Resort in northern Vermont posted to social
media this photo of resort crews prepping the slopes
for next week's opening amid heavy snow. People
have already been flocking to the resort, and
some of them have been causing serious
headaches and dangers for the resort. 

The people who run Jay Peak Resort, in far northern Vermont, say they have had - incredibly - nearly   four feet of snowfall in the past two weeks. 

The problem is, the resort is not open for the season yet. They were planning on opening at the very end of the month, around Thanksgiving. But the resort is pushing up the opening date to this coming weekend, given the unexpectedly snowy circumstances.

But the crew up there has to first get everything set up and running to accommodate those skiers. 

Meanwhile, all that fresh natural snow is too tempting to ignore, and people are heading up to the mountain to ski and ride, even thought the lifts aren't operating yet. 

Which leads us to Skiers Behaving Badly. 

In a Facebook post today, Jay Peak Resort General Manager Steve Wright reported that over the weekend, there had been two break-ins at lift shacks, two fires, two groups of lost skiers and "an injury severe enough to wipe out the entire season for someone who thought adding backflips into their early season matrix was a good and swell idea."

People were also ignoring pleas to stick to the Tramside part of the resort so that crews could get the Stateside, where crews were operating winch cables. Skiers and riders were running over the winch cables, which is a BIG no-no.

That's a big danger to the skiers and riders, AND the crews operating them. The Facebook post states: "We care a hell of a lot for the Mountain Ops team, who while grooming/winching /snowmaking in near whiteout conditions, also have to navigate folks ignoring pretty simple requests."

Uphilling and skinning - attaching skins to skis so you can climb uphill and not slide backward - is pretty much a pre-season tradition at ski resorts when there's a ton of snow before the resort opens.

Since lifts aren't open yet, people climb ski slopes, then blast down from the top on the not-officially-open trails 

Some resorts, including Jay, tend to tolerate this as long as uphillers don't get in the way of work crews or otherwise violate rules. Jay Peak refers to a culture of watching out for each other and respecting basic rules of engagement and civility in the sport as having been "Raised Jay." 

The Facebook post acknowledged experienced uphillers who are behaving fine, but the early winter weather has "brought out new folks owning an attitude resembling altogether different from Raised Jay." 

My guess is some of these troublemakers have brought their phones so they can shoot scenes for clicks on social media. 

By the way, since Jay Peak isn't open yet, there's no ski patrol there yet to rescue anyone who does something stupid. 

Here's another thing. It's hunting season. Deer hunters aren't going to do their thing on the Jay Peak trails. It's stupid, plus they know the deer woh't be there. 

But one person commenting on Jay Peak's Facebook post said he saw back country skiers hiking up the hills near Route 242, passing by a deer hunter's truck. The skiers were not wearing blaze orange, so there's an accidental shooting in the making.  

I noticed the comments on Jay Peak's Facebook posts were supportive of the resort's warnings, but cautioned that you can't easily stop a mix of stupidity and entitlement. "What are the chances a jersey joey or Mickey Montreal will listen to this?," one person asked. 

Another said this type is the scourge of most resorts, warning of another type of ski resort jerk, the "Killington Karen."  

In a sign that this is why we can't have nice things, Jay Peak is threatening to block uphilling or any other activity on the mountain for everybody until the resort officially opens. Because of the entitled few that are wrecking things. 

I haven't checked in with other Vermont resorts that aren't open yet, but if I had to guess, they're seeing some of the same problems Jay Peak Resort has seen in recent days.

Do better, folks!  

Dude Who Flew Drone Into California Firefighting Plane Found And Punished

Damage to the wing of a  "Super Scooper"
firefighting plane after a drone collided with
the plane as it was fighting last month
s big wildfires in California. 

 The person whose drone collided with a firefighting aircraft during the devastating January California wildfires has been caught.  

It's hard enough to fight basically uncontrollable wildfires in the age of climate change, and looky loos flying tones make it worse.

In this case, a man flying a drone ended up crashing it into a firefighting plane. The incident grounded the plane for days due to damage to its wing. 

According to the Associated Press: 

"Peter Tripp Akemann faces up to one year in prison, and a judge will determine his sentence, acting U.S. attorney Joseph McNally said. As part of the plea agreement, he will have to complete 150 hours of wildfire-related community service and pay $65,000 in restitution for the damage to the plane, McNally said."

He can probably afford the fine, which allowed Akemann to avoid jail time. He is a co-founder of Call of Duty studios.

 Akemann launched the drone from a Santa Monica parking structure on January 9.  It flew about 1.5 miles  toward the fire in Palisades, California, but then he lost sight of it. Which is a no-no. The drone crashed into what is known as a Super Scooper that was carrying two firefighters

The airspace were Akemann's drone was flying was under FAA flight restrictions at the time, theregister.com reported.

These Super Scooper planes, from Quebec are piloted so they skim the surface of a lake or ocean, where they scoop up about 1,500 gallons of water. Then the planes fly over the wildfire to dump the water on the flames.  It's pretty fascinating to watch. 

After the collision, the Super Scooper pilot was able to land the plane safely, but it was grounded for several days to repair a hole in the left wing caused by the drone. 

Prosecutors said Akemann did not intend to cause the collision. But, as Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI Los Angeles Field office said, "Lack of common sense and ignorance of your duty does not shield you from criminal charges." 

In a statement to media. Akemann's defense attorney, Glen Jonas said Akemann is "deeply sorry for the mistake he made" and "accepts responsibility for his grave error in judgement.

Even so, as theregister.com reported, "Akemann's attorneys tried to lay some of the blame at the feet of drone maker DJI for not properly geofencing the area to prevent the flight.

The fateful flight occurred days before DJI announced it was scaling back geofencing restrictions in favor of simply notifying drone pilots that they were operating in restricted airspace."  

It's unclear whether DJI had begun doing that scaling back process when Akemann launched his drown. 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday California Fires Update: So Far, No New Big Catacylsm, But Deep Danger, Sorrow Remain

Areas in red are under a red flag warning, meaning destructive
fires are possible today. Areas outlined in purple are in a 
"particularly dangerous situation" where any fires that
start or spread would be extremely fast moving and
erratic. Click on map to make it bigger easier to see.

A glimmer of good news in California Tuesday as winds weren't quite as strong as forecast, helping firefighters hold the lines on the giant wildfires burning there. 

But today could be a long one. 

Winds have picked up dangerously, gusting to 50 mph in some areas. That's more than enough to spread embers and start new fires. Early morning video from television KTLA early this morning showed fairly strong, gusty winds already blowing through Ventura County.

Reports of 35 to 50 mph with higher gusts have been coming in all morning. That rare, "particularly dangerous situation" fire weather warning remains in effect through 3 p.m, local time today for Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Residents have been told to have  a "to go" bad ready by the front door, and be ready to leave, and quickly at the drop of a hat. 

There are far more firefighters deployed in and around Los Angeles today than when the fires started last week, so the hope is those resources can gain the upper hand if a new fire starts. 

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports about 50 arrests for looting, flying drones in fire zones, violating curfew and other crimes. Three of those were arrested for arson, but the fires they allegedly started remained small, were quickly put out, and were not near the disaster zone.

So far, the death toll is 25, but up to 30 people remain missing. Searchers are looking for bodies in the rubble of some of the worst hit neighborhoods, 

Here's one snapshot of the new reality Angelenos are facing. One resident said the sound of helicopters rattling around overhead all night and through the pre-dawn hours would have once driven him nuts. But the fact that those helicopters are trying to prevent more destruction is actually soothing, and helps him fall asleep. 

 OUTLOOK

If the region can get through today without existing fires going out of control again or new ones igniting, then the region gets a brief reprieve,  

Winds should relax again toward evening  and stay fairly calm at least through Saturday, which is great. Some of the lighter breezes could actually come off the Pacific  Ocean instead of the desert. Those ocean winds will bring a little needed humidity, but unfortunately no rain.

 Plus, the nightmare is far from over.  Meteorologists say strong, dry easterly winds might redevelop early next week, and there is still no real rain in the forecast through the end of the month

A new fire started in Ventura County Monday evening, forcing some evacuations.  But firefighters managed to put a stop its forward progress  after it consumed about 61 acres. Thankfully, so far no houses or other buildings, and the fire is about half contained.

Another fire started Tuesday evening in the San Fernando Valley, but firefighters quickly pounced on it. So far, that fire hasn't spread too much, and it hasn't prompted evacuations and it's still largely under control.

Fingers crossed there. 

A very large wildfire was burning in Mexico, just south of the International border below San Diego County, California. While the U.S. is not immediately threatened by the fire, it bears watching. 

Videos:

Some dog videos in the mix this time. 

In this first one, I have to tell the back story. It's heartbreaking but ultimately has a happy ending. On the first day of the fire, NBC reporter Liz Kruetz interviewed a distraught man trying to reach his home where his two dogs were trapped as the fire closed in. "I literally rescued them off the street, they deserve better than this," Casey Colvin tearfully told the reporter. 

Firefighters rescued one of Colvin's dogs before his house was consumed by flames, but the other one, Oreo ran off. For several days, he worried about dog, though there were photos indicating Oreo was still alive, 

Then, the same reporter helped Colvin get to his destroyed house on Sunday, where he found Oreo alive. The reunion is joyous. 

If any of you trolls pick on this guy for his emotions, I hope the rest of your life is one of misery. The traumatized man represents all of those victimized and distraught by the fire. They're clinging to any good news they can get. Colvin represents them all. 

Click on this link to watch this gripping video, or if you see the image below click on that. Make sure the Kleenex is handy:  

In this case, a dog is rescued from the fire. The understandably frightened dog was trapped in the yard of a house in flames. First responders rescued it, and a photographer snapped photos. This inspired an outpouring of donations to help dogs and other animals who were victims of the fire. .  Click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that. 

In the next video, a passerby in a neighborhood rescues a woman and her four dogs whose house is on fire and whose car won't start, They braved a blizzard of burning embers to get out of harms way. The video is pretty harrowing. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below click on that.

A drive through Altadena, California after the fire. You can tell despite the destruction this was an absolutely beautiful community. If there were no fire, I'd live there in a heartbeat.  Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below click on that. 

 

Pupdate: Owner Of Dog Abandoned Near Highway In Hurricane Faces Charges

The horrible person who allegedly abandoned this
dog tied to a fence near Tampa, Florida as
Hurricane Milton approached has been arrested.
The dog, as we noted last week, was rescued by
a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper.

 Remember that dog I wrote about recently that was abandoned near Interstate 75 outside of Tampa, Florida in floodwaters as Hurricane Milton approached?  

As we wrote, the dog was rescued. And there was the predictable outrage over this. Now, the person who allegedly left the pooch there to almost certainly die in the hurricane has been arrested.

The Tampa Bay Times tell us: 

Giovanny Aldama Garcia, 23 was booked into jail Monday on a charge of aggravated cruelty to animals, which is a felony. 

The Tampa Bay Times continues the story by telling us Garcia called an animal shelter in Hillsborough, County, Florida that he was the dog's owner but would give it up if someone would love and care for it.

Which is the opposite of what he did, but there you go.

Offices later talked to Garcia at his home in Ruskin, Florida, who said he had the dog since it was a puppy but could no longer care for it. 

That's when a normal person might turn the dog into a reputable animal shelter but that's not Garcia, apparently. 

Garcia said he was with this mother on Interstate 75 during the mass evacuation ahead of Hurricane Milton when his mother let the dog out of the car. The narrative doesn't say why, or details how it ended up tied to that fence in floodwater.

Apparently, Garcia saw social media posts about the dog's rescue and try to reclaim the pooch.

Not happening, by the way. 

Garcia will not be allowed to have the dog, which has since been renamed Trooper. A foster family is caring for Trooper for now, until he's ready for an adoption into a forever home. 

More details emerged over how the dog was found. He was tied to a fence quite a distance from the roadway, in a flooded low spot difficult for passing motorists to notice.

However, in rainy weather hours before ferocious Hurricane Milton arrived, an eagle-eyed woman in a car traveling on Interstate 75 that day spotted the dog and called police, the Tampa Bay Times reported.  

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Orlando Morales drove to the area and initially couldn't see the dog. However, he began calling the dog over a portable speaker and the dog poked his head up above the brush. Rescue was at hand. 

Hillsborough County State Attorney Suzy Lopez said some crimes can get enhanced charges if they are committed during a state of emergency, as this case was. However, animal cruelty is not one of those crimes, and she urged the Florida legislature to change the law so enhanced charges could be filed if something like this ever happens again. 

Meanwhile, Garcia was released from jail Tuesday on $2,500 cash bond.  He could face up to five years in jail if found guilty. 

A Vile Horrible Person Left A Dog To Die In Hurricane Milton: Spoiler: Dog Rescued

Florida Highway Patrol troopers found this dog in
this situation, abandoned, tied to a fence amid
flood waters as Hurricane Milton approached
on Wednesday.  The troopers rescued the dog and
its safe and doing well now. I really hope
whoever did this is NOT safe and doing well now. 

 There is a special place in hell for whoever did the following.

As Hurricane Milton approached Florida Wednesday, somebody tied a dog to a fence in for what for the pooch was chest deep water off Interstate 75 near Tampa in a spot virtually invisible to passing motorists.  

Thankfully, either an eagle-eyed motorist called police, or a very alert Florida Highway Patrol Trooper spotted the dog and rescued it. 

Body cam video taken by the trooper who rescued the dog shows the officer under rainy skies wading into a soggy, puddle-strewn field next to the highway to reach what appears to be an English bull terrier. 

As the trooper approaches the frightened dog, it growled and barked at the trooper, who replied to the dog, "It's OK, I don't blame you."

Florida Highway Patrol posted the body cam video on social media with the caption, "Do NOT do this to your pets, please."

Yeah, no kidding!

The dog was taken to a veterinarian who gave the pooch a clean bill of health. The Highway Patrol posted a followup photo of the dog, looking understandably happier, safe in the police cruiser on a blanket, being taken to the vet.

Since it was a highway patrolman that rescued the dog, it has been named Trooper. 

The dog will probably be put up for adoption, though at this point, the Leon County Florida Humane Society, where Trooper is staying, says he is not up for adoption now.  Given the publicity this incident has received, I imagine this dog will find a loving forever home. 

Trooper needs time to de-stress and recover, the Humane Society said on social media: "We can't imagine the situation that ended with him tied to this pole and left him without any hope. It's hard even to think about how scared he must have been as cars raced by, the water rose to his belly and the storm clouds darkened."  

The Humane Society also said, contrary to false reports circulating on line, Trooper has not been reunited with family or anybody else. If whoever left Trooper tied up like that, they will certainly face charges. 

Quite predictably, this incident sparked outrage everywhere. 

One example: Readers of this blog know I don't exactly love Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but I'm 100 percent in agreement when he said at a Wednesday afternoon press conference:

"I hope they find the person who did it, and that person should have the book thrown at them. We've got very good laws against animal cruelty....we don't have tolerance for that in Florida. I thought it was outrageous that somebody would do that."

Whenever whoever did this to the poor dog, name them and shame them for sure!  

Did Factory Supervisors Cause Deaths Of Workers In Tennessee Helene Flood?

Managers at an Impact Plastics plant in Erwin, Tennessee
allegedly did not let employees leave as Hurricane Helene
floodwaters rose around them. This resulted in six deaths.

Another huge disaster, another case in which a major employer did not protect their workers from danger as they should have. 

At the Impact Plastics factory in Erwin, a small town in eastern Tennessee, employees kept working last Friday as waters in the nearby Nolichucky River rose.

Erwin is in the western foothills of the Appalachians, very close to the North Carolina border and right next to the tall mountains that collected two to three feet of rain from Hurricane Helene and a torrential rainstorm that immediately preceded the tropical system. 

They kept working into the power went out and water swirled into the factory's parking lot. Ultimately 11 factory workers and a contractor were swept away as they tried to escape and only five of them were rescued. The others are dead or presumed dead. Not all the bodies have been found. 

There's plenty of credible stories emerging there that plant managers wouldn't let people flee the rising flood waters until it was far too late. 

Here's part of a report in the Knoxville News Sentinel:

"Jacob Ingram has worked at Impact Plastics for near nearly eight months as a mold changer. It's a role, he said, that keeps him on his feet for the entire first shift.

As the waters rose outside, managers wouldn't let employees leave, he said. Instead, managers told people to move their cars away from the rising water. Ingram moved his two separate times because the water wouldn't stop rising. 

'They should've evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,' Ingram told Knox News. 'When we moved our card we should've evacuated then...we asked them if we should evacuate and they told us not yet, it wasn't bad enough. 

'And by the time it was bad enough, it was too late unless you had a four-wheel drive.'"

Ingram went on to tell the paper that he and 10 others fought their way through waist deep water when a semitruck driver called them over and helped them get on an open-bed truck, which was packed full of large flexible gas pipes.

A piece of debris smacked into the truck, knocking a woman off and sweeping her away. Then another piece of debris did exactly the same thing. Now two women were gone. 

Then the truck was hit by a much larger piece of debris, overturning the entire vehicle. Ingram thought to grab onto the plastic gas pipes, because he had seen some other pieces of the material floating downstream rather than sinking. 

Ingram and four other employees floated a half mile downstream until they hit a large pile of debris they could hang on to. An hour after that, a Tennessee National Guard helicopter plucked them from the pile to save them.  

We know one of the women who fell off the truck died. The body of Bertha Mendoza, 56, was found on September 29. Others from the truck are missing. 

Ingram managed to post some harrowing videos on Facebook that make it clear at least to me that employees of Impact Plastics should have been evacuated far sooner. 

Impact Plastics officials are circling the wagons on these damning accounts. As the Associated Press reports:

"Impact Plastics said in a statement Monday that it 'continued monitor weather conditions' Friday and that managers dismissed employees 'when water began to cover the parking lot and the adjacent service road, and the plant lost power.'"

But in a separate interview, Ingram told WVLT: "I actually asked one of the higher ups (if we should leave) and they told me, 'No, not yet.'. They had to ask someone before we was able to leave. Even though it was already above the doors of the cars."

 Ingram told WVLT that employees were made to stay on site for 15 to 20 minutes after the power went out. 

CBS News reported another employee, Robert Jarvis, gave exactly the same account as Ingram.  Jarvis also asked this question during an interview with television station WBIR: "Why would you make us stay there? Why would  you keep us there if you knew it was going to be bad, if you were monitoring it? Why were we still there?"

Well, my cynical but possibly accurate answer is some mucky muck with Impact Plastics somewhere was loathe to let their commodity, I mean human beings, get out of harms way. That is until the power failed, at which point the factory could no longer make revenue. By then, of course, it was too late for many of the employees to flee.  

Or, if I'm more charitable, the culture at Impact Plastics is that supervisors were tyrants, and there's not a lot of jobs in eastern Tennessee so employees were fearful of getting fired for, you know, trying to save their own lives. 

Notice how carefully Impact Plastics statements are worded. The statement said that while most employees left immediately, some remained on or near the premises. Yeah, because by then they were trapped by the raging floodwaters. 

The owner of a manufacturing plant near Impact Plastics had sent his employees home before they could become endangered and tried to drive a piece of heavy equipment to Impact Plastics in a rescue attempt. 

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is now looking into the allegations against Impact Plastics at the direction of a local prosecutor. 

EMPLOYEE DISASTER SAFETY OFTEN IGNORED

I admit part of all this might be Monday morning quarterbacking. I'm sure nobody in Erwin could have imagined things would get that bad that fast.  This is why in the same town, close to 60 people ended up trapped on the roof of a small local hospital as rapids raced around and through the building. 

Still, it fits a pattern in which too often, keeping employees safe during dangerous weather is just a drag on profits, sure to make shareholders unhappy. What's a few dead employees it allows you to buy a second yacht, right?

I've covered other examples like what allegedly happened at Impact Plastics. 

After a deadly tornado outbreak in December, 2021, employees of a Mayfield, Kentucky candle factory hit by a powerful tornado that night said managers would not let them leave to seek safer shelter ahead of the approaching twister. Nine people who were in the factory died in the storm. 

During that same, December, 2021 tornado outbreak, six people died in an Amazon distribution center in Illinois when a tornado hit. Employees there said they were not given the opportunity to seek safer shelter when tornado warnings blared.

In that same tornado, an Amazon driver said she was told by supervisors to keep driving instead of taking shelter despite the fact a tornado warning was in effect.

Also, legislators in Texas and Florida prevented municipalities from enacting ordinances that would have mandated water and rest breaks for outdoor workers toiling in those states' excessive summer heat. 

Which proves that lawmakers and Florida and Texas, and too many corporations, regard especially low wage workers that to them, it's no big deal if a worker dies because of dangerous weather. To them, these workers are not human beings. Just machines to replace when they are "defective" and break down in rough weather conditions. 

I really hope those responsible for the deaths at Impact Plastics are held accountable. 

Colorado Farmers Create Fake Drought To Rake In Federal Money. Ends VERY Badly For Them

Two Colorado farmers tampered with a 
federal weather station like this one,
damaging rain gauges to make it look
like less rain fell than actually did.
The scheme was organized so they
could receive federal drought payoffs.

 Two Colorado farmers learned an extremely expensive lesson when they faked a drought by tampering with federal rain gauges, the Washington Post reports. 

Prosecutors said Patrick Esch and Edward Dean Jagers II cut wires, poured silicone and loosened bolts in an effort to keep those rain gauges empty so they could make false crop insurance claims for "drought."  

Federal officials were not amused, according to WaPo:

"Under the criminal pleas, Esch was ordered to pay $2,084,441 in restitution and Jagers was ordered to pay $1,036,625. Those amounts have been paid, Colorado federal district attorney's office spokeswoman Melissa Brandon told the Washington Post on Monday. 

But wait! There's more!

"The civil settlement from a whistleblower involved in the case requires Esch to pay an addition $3 million - $676,871.74 of which is restitution, per court records - plus 3 percent interest over the next 12 months, Brandon said. Jagers has paid his required additional $500,000."

Esch, 72, also spend two months in prison. Jagers, 63, spent six months in the slammer. 

Some of the details get juicy, according to CBS Colorado.

Apparently, Jaber and Esch had two other people involved in this fake drought conspiracy. This takes on the air of a bad TV crime drama. Says CBS Colorado:

".....one of the co-conspirators turned on the group and extorted Esch in particular. The unidentified male threatened to expose the entire enterprise to authorities in exchange for Esch paying the man's bond for release from jail and giving several five-figure payments to he man's girlfriend.

Esch, according to his plea agreement, even shrugged off the man's admitted theft of an all-terrain vehicle from Esch in exchange for the man's silence. 

In August of 2023, a month before Jager and Esch reached their plea agreements with prosecutors, this unidentified male co-conspirator escaped from prison. This triggered a nationwide manhunt and caused Esch and his family 'to go into hiding,' as stated in a court document Two weeks after the escape the co-conspirator was found dead."

Inquiring minds want to know what the co-conspirator died of. 

And I bet Esch in particular really, really regrets his fun and games with rain gauges, given how screwed up his life is now. 

 

Greenhouse Gas Smuggling? It's A Thing

   There's now a global treaty to ban HFCs, a 
chemical for air conditioners and refrigerators
because they are extremely potent greenhouse
gases. But illegal smuggling of this gas
is a thing, and a subject of crackdowns

 We've all heard of smuggling migrants, drugs, contraband, what have you across the U.S./Mexican border.  

But greenhouse gases?

It's a thing. Who knew?

The U.S. Justice Department tells us Michael Hart, 58, of San Diego has become the first person prosecuted under a 2020 federal law aimed at phasing out a terribly potent greenhouse gas. 

Prosecutors said Hart purchased this stuff in Mexico,  hit it under a tarp and tools in his truck, then sold the gases online at places like Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp.   

No, Hart wasn't somehow selling carbon dioxide or methane, which hardly anybody would want to buy anyway. 

It was stuff called hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs which are used big time in air conditioning and refrigeration. Or at least they were until recently, when it became clear this gas was worsening climate change. 

THE BACKGROUND

Back in the day, another chemical, chlorofluorocarbon, or CFCs were used in air conditioning and refrigeration and stuff like that.  But CFS were found to be wrecking the ozone layer, especially above the South Pole. 

That put humans at higher risk of illnesses like skin cancer and cataracts, and also messed with the ecosystem. So, in the late 1980s, in a rare model of global cooperation, the Montreal Protocol was enacted, which banned the worldwide use of CFS.

The Montreal Protocol worked: The Ozone Layer has been repairing itself ever since this international treaty went into effect. 

We still needed air conditioning and refrigeration and such, so it was on to the HFCs, which were widely used in the 1980s and 1990s.

But oops! HFCs turn out to be an incredibly potent greenhouse gas.  It's 1,000 times more effective at trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere than that old stuff that was destroying the Ozone Layer. Also about 1,000 times worse than carbon dioxide for doing the same thing. 

So the United States banned HFCs and signed on to an amended to the international Montreal Protocol, called the Kigali Amendment. 

Getting rid of HFCs is another rare moment of agreement. Business interests like it because they feel it will make the United States more competitive in a global economy. (We're manufacturing alternatives to HFCs)  Environmentalists like the ban on this stuff because, well, climate change. 

There's always holdouts, though, which brings us back to the smuggling. 

The United Nations Environment Program says an illicit trade in HFCs spans the globe, as I guess there's still a lot of demand to repair existing refrigerators and air conditioners using this gas.  The European Union over the years has seized hundreds of metric tons of HFCs, Chemical and Engineering News reported back in 2021.

Organized crime groups do most of the smuggling because HFCs are often more profitable than illicit drugs.

Of course, the U.S. Justice Department's prosecution of a HFC smuggler is welcome and I hope for more such actions.  But the problem probably won't fade away until appliances and machinery using HFCs wear out to the point they have to be replaced.

Those replacements will mostly use safer substances that don't add much added risk to the climate. 

Until I suppose they find something wrong with the new stuff, too.