Apparently two fires on Wednesday along highway 82 in Snowmass Canyon, Colorado were started from burning embers blowing out of a barbecue grill in the back of a pickup traveling upvalley on the highway. A trucker reported that he saw a blue Ford pickup with a smoking grill in the back. Pitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Brad Gibson is thinking the embers from the grill started the fires. 

Gibson was quoted as saying:

Don’t put a burning barbecue grill in the back of a pickup truck and drive up the highway.

That’s always good advice.

As long as we have idiots like that pickup truck driver, there will always be a need for fire departments. And speaking of idiots, this is the 4th time we have assigned the tag “idiot”  on Wildfire Today.

Thanks Dick

We have a new use for one of our post labels. Used only once before for Glenn Beck of CNN, now the post label “idiot” is awarded to Representative Darrell Issa of San Diego. He made a series of stupid statements about the 9/11 attacks, minimized the health effects on the rescuers and workers, and argued against extending benefits to the people that are still hugely affected by the incident.

Many firefighters are still suffering from the long term effects of working in the contaminated Ground Zero area.

An excerpt from the New York Daily News:

The California congressman who called the Sept. 11 attacks “simply” a plane crash ran for cover Wednesday under a barrage of ridicule from fellow Republicans, first responders and victims’ families.

San Diego GOP Rep. Darrell Issa was under siege for suggesting the federal government had already done enough to help New York cope with “a fire” that “simply was an aircraft” hitting the World Trade Center.

“That is a pretty distorted view of things,” said Frank Fraone, a Menlo Park, Calif., fire chief who led a 67-man crew at Ground Zero. “Whether they’re a couple of planes or a couple of missiles, they still did the same damage.”

“New York was attacked by Al Qaeda. It doesn’t have to be attacked by Congress,” added Long Island Rep. Pete King, a Republican.

“I’m really surprised by Darrell Issa,” King added. “It showed such a cavalier dismissal of what happened to New York. It’s wrong and inexcusable.”

Lorie Van Aucken, who lost her husband, Kenneth, in the attacks, slammed Issa’s “cruel and heartless” comments.

“It’s really discouraging. People stepped up and did the right thing. They sacrificed themselves and now a lot of people are getting really horrible illnesses,” she added.

Under pressure from all sides, the Golden State pol – who got rich selling car alarms after getting busted for car theft as a teen – pulled a partial U-turn. He issued a statement but cowered from the press.

“I continue to support federal assistance for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” he said.

But he didn’t retract his wacked-out rhetoric claiming the feds “just threw” buckets of cash at New York for an attack “that had no dirty bomb in it, it had no chemical munitions in it.”

He went on: “I have to ask … why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration.”

An idiot who has a computer and knows how to use it has posted on his blog the suggestion that

“If you know a Sierra Club member, please feel free to set their home on fire.”

I hesitate to post about this, because it is probably, like the “Forest Jihad” threat, just the rantings of a crazed lunatic who did not receive enough attention from his mother, so he gets it by posting on the Internet.

But, you’ll probably hear about this anyway, so….. The Missoulian has the whole story.

Years ago I was a card-carrying member of the Sierra Club. But when they began going over the top with their policies, such as demanding that there be no timber harvesting on National Forests, I left the organization. Watchdog organizations serve a purpose, but they are most effective when they present a reasoned, logical, and practical point of view. The arson threat is of course absurd, and I wish no ill-will towards the Sierra Club.

(Thanks to Dick Mangan for the tip.)

You may have heard of Glenn Beck. He appears on CNN Headline News and also has a nationally-syndicated radio show. I rarely agree with anything he says, but I just found out that on his October 22 radio show, while the Witch Creek, Harris, and other fires were burning in southern California, he said:

“I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.”

Both fires started in eastern San Diego county and were pushed by strong Santa Ana winds into the outskirts of San Diego. In the Harris and Witch Creek fires, a total of 1,246 homes burned, 7 people were killed, and a CalFire engine crew was entrapped and seriously burned.

Beck contradicted himself several times, but his rationale is that since California is predominantly a Democratic state, and since he believes that Democrats “hate America”, that the homes of people who hate America were burning. Of course Beck is an idiot, but to say this while over 1,000 homes are burning and 500,000 residents are being evacuated is the height of irresponsibility, insensitivity, and stupidity.

According to Media Matters, Beck has also said

“it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims’ families” and referred to Hurricane Katrina survivors as “scumbags”

(photo is of the Harris Fire burning on Mount San Miguel east of San Diego, October 23, 2007; from Wikipedia)