A 71-year-old man was arrested and charged with starting the 2022 Oak Fire, the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office said yesterday. Edward Fredrick Wackerman of Mariposa, California, faces felony charges including aggravated arson for the fire that burned 19,244 acres and destroyed 127 residential structures and dozens of outbuildings. The Fresno Bee reported that the Oak Fire near Yosemite National Park ignited about 2 p.m. on July 22, 2022, in Midpines.
Edward Fredrick Wackerman, 71, SHERIFF’S OFFICE photo
CAL FIRE law enforcement officers arrested Wackerman, according to the Mariposa Gazette, after an extensive interagency investigation, on multiple felony charges including suspicion of aggravated arson PC 451.5, arson that causes great bodily injury PC 451(a), and arson causing damage or destruction of inhabited structures PC 451(b).
The investigation was a collaborative effort among multiple agencies including CAL FIRE Law Enforcement, Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office, USFS Law Enforcement, NPS Law Enforcement, Madera County District Attorney Investigators, Mariposa County District Attorney’s Office, California Department of Justice Attorney General’s Office, and the FBI.
There were no reported fatalities caused by the Oak Fire, but Cal Fire said some were injured and treated, almost all for heat-related illness, and the fire burned for almost a month.
Officials initially said they were limited on what they could discuss in order to protect the investigation, but the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office said it planned a news conference for 10 a.m. Tuesday in front of the Mariposa County Courthouse; it will be streamed live on Facebook.
The Pulp Road Fire in Brunswick County reached 3,500 acres today and was still at zero percent containment. The 15,000-acre preserve where it’s burning crosses Brunswick and Columbus counties and is designated a National Natural Landmark. According to the N.C. Forest Service, the area was cleared of unburned fuels outside the fire perimeter, and crews had mopped up spot fires.
The N.C. Forest Service — one of several state forestry agencies in the U.S. that are named “Forest Service” — has mobilized its Red Incident Management Team to take over the fire. Resources earlier today included multiple engine and tractor plow strike teams plus aircraft. The PortCityDaily out of Wilmington reported that personnel will staff the fire through the weekend.
The state DEQ raised air pollution alerts to red in Brunswick County and orange in both New Hanover and Pender counties.
According to the Wilmington Star News, the fire initially was lit as a controlled burn in the Green Swamp Game Land and Green Swamp Nature Preserve, but yesterday the fire burned out of control and was classified as a wildfire. It nearly doubled in size since Thursday night. Smoke is thick in some areas and it is affecting visibility; officials have urged drivers to use caution.
State and local officials urged residents with respiratory issues to remain indoors.
Air quality in the upper Mississippi River Valley, tainted Thursday by north winds blowing in smoke from Canadian wildfires, worsened from moderately affected in the morning to just plain unhealthy by afternoon. By 6:30 p.m. the Air Quality Index (AQI) was rated at Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.
Midwest smoke map 06/15/2023
According to the National Weather Service (NWS) and AirNow.gov, smoke from fires burning in Ontario — north of Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois — is forecast to cause a mix of air quality conditions into at least Saturday.
As of 4 p.m. Thursday, the AQI for northwest Illinois and eastern Iowa showed pollutants hovering between the conditions of unhealthy for those sensitive to pollution and unhealthy for anyone in the population. The Sterling Daily Gazette reported that sensitive groups include people with respiratory conditions or heart or lung disease — as well as children, teens, and seniors.
Those at risk are advised to stay indoors or at least shorten the time they are active outdoors.
AirNow.gov air quality index and smoke drift map 06/15/2023AirNow.gov air quality index and smoke drift map
The New York Times reported that smoke from Canada fires is returning to smoke-weary residents of New York; it’s expected to be heaviest on Friday morning, but forecasters said the region would be spared the orange haze that settled last week, when a thick plume of smoke choked the air in New York City, delaying flights, closing schools, and sending people to hospitals with respiratory issues. The NWS said smoke had temporarily settled in the Upper Midwest, causing unhealthy levels in much of Minnesota, including the Twin Cities.
Accu-Weather reports said Canadian smoke is now settling across the Midwest; it had started to drift over Minnesota and the Dakotas earlier in the week, and by Thursday morning, wind had carried high-altitude smoke as far south as Oklahoma and east to Pennsylvania and New York. The worst smoke stretched from southern Minnesota to central Ohio, and emergency room physicians and nurses cautioned those at risk to stay indoors if possible.
“With the air quality at its current levels, we are beginning to see a slight increase in emergency rooms visits for patients suffering from respiratory issues,” said Sarah Alvarez-Brown, director of Emergency Services and Behavioral Health at CGH Medical Center in Sterling, Illinois. “On average, 20 percent of emergency visits involve respiratory issues and difficulty breathing, but over the last couple of days, we have seen this jump to 30 or 40 percent of visits. No matter your age — from infants to older adults — if you have a pre-existing respiratory condition, asthma, heart or lung disease, or you are sensitive to changes in air quality, you may want to limit your time outside or stay indoors, in an air-conditioned or air-purified environment, until the smoke and haze pass.”
Check AirNow.gov for updates; the maps are interactive and can be zoomed or changed by zip code. Air quality levels are updated hourly.
The FederalNewsNetwork is reporting that several federal agencies have been hit with cyber intrusions by a zero-day vulnerability in a popular file transfer service, and Department of Energy organizations are among the victims.
UPDATE 06/16: The global data breach exposed the personal information of millions of Oregonians who have a DMV-issued identification card. Airlines, banks, universities, foreign governments, and other state-level agencies were also compromised by the attack. Those compromises include a government-managed radioactive waste storage site, and the victim count outside of government agencies was about 50 as of late yesterday. KPTV News reported that the Oregon DMV was made aware of the breach on June 1. The Oregon DOT announced yesterday that personal information of about 3.5 million residents may have been compromised; ODOT was alerted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that a popular file transfer tool called MOVEit could allow unauthorized access to its user systems. Around a dozen other U.S. agencies have active MOVEit contracts, according to the Federal Data Procurement System. TechCrunch reported that this includes the Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Force, and the Food and Drug Administration.
Multiple sources confirmed that Oak Ridge Associated Universities and Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico experienced data breaches caused by the MOVEit vulnerability. It was unknown whether the incident affected any internal Energy Department-run systems, but it had impacted agency data at those locations.
Multiple U.S. agencies have been compromised by attackers who had exploited flaws in popular software tool MOVEit and had collected information from a range of victims. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed Thursday that several federal agencies were affected but which agencies was not yet clear. CLoP‘s Russian-speaking hackers have managed recent attacks exploiting MOVEit.
The breach compromised the personally identifiable information of potentially tens of thousands of individuals, including DOE employees and contractors, and DOE officials took immediate steps to prevent further exposure. Other agencies will also likely be affected by the breach because MOVEit is a popular transfer software.
“This software is embedded in a lot of systems, and there could be a long tail on this one,” one source said. “There’s probably stuff out there you just don’t know about yet.” The government of Nova Scotia and the University of Rochester were the first victims to be identified in North America while organizations such as Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom, the BBC, British Airways, and Irish carrier Aer Lingus have disclosed data theft.
Minnesota’s Department of Education announced a wide-ranging breach involving the data of hundreds of thousands of students.
TheRecord reported that security company Censys said they examined organizations exposed to the internet who use MOVEit Transfer and found that 31 percent of the hosts running MOVEit are in the financial services industry, 16 percent in healthcare, 9 percent in information technology, and 8 percent in government and military.
Missouri’s Office of Administration, Information Services and Technology Division (OA-ITSD) said on Tuesday it is investigating what was taken by hackers during a cyberattack on the MOVEit system they use to transfer files and information between agencies. State agencies in Illinois also said they are investigating.
A jury in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, Oregon decided yesterday that the state’s second-largest electric utility PacifiCorp — which owns Pacific Power — must pay punitive damages for causing the horrific Labor Day wildfires in 2020 — in addition to the earlier verdict in a class-action suit for negligence. It’s expected to amount to billions of dollars. The jury on Monday awarded $73 million to 17 homeowners named as plaintiffs in the case, with damages for a broader class involving the owners of nearly 2,500 properties burned in the fires.
Beachie Creek Fire Sept. 2 2020 — Inciweb photo
PacifiCorp, owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, said it would appeal, according to a report published by KEZI-TV News.
The jury determined yesterday that punitive damages were warranted because of the utility’s indifference to the safety of others — and to deter such conduct in the future. The 2020 fires were among the worst natural disasters in Oregon’s history, and burned more acres than had been burned in the previous 36 years combined.
September 9 update from Brian Gales’ NWIMT13 after the Beachie Creek ICP was overrun by fire. Originally listed at 469 acres, the fire grew overnight to 131,000 acres.Beachie Creek Fire
The fires roared down canyons in western Oregon, blown by east winds, hot temperatures, and other conditions perfect for autumn firestorms, killing nine people and burning more than 1,875 square miles (4,856 square kilometers), destroying upwards of 5,000 homes and other structures.
Plaintiffs alleged that PacifiCorp negligently failed to shut off power to its 600,000 customers during a severe windstorm, despite numerous warnings from top fire officials, which had prompted other utilities in the state to temporarily shut down power to prevent powerline-caused fires.
Utility crews in October 2020 — Inciweb photo
Doug Dixon, an attorney for the power company, told the jury that punitive damages were unwarranted. He claimed PacifiCorp was not indifferent to the threat of wildfire risk — despite testimony indicating otherwise during the trial. The company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars since the fires to upgrade equipment and expand weather stations and weather modeling. Dixon said the utility could face bankruptcy if punitive damages exceed its net worth of $10.7 billion.
The final verdict is posted on our DOCUMENTS page.
We were talking with Jennings about the making of the film when the text arrived. He shared the news, and remembered, as a filmmaker and resident of Portland, Oregon, those days of wind, smoke and firestorms, of so many lost homes, and of when the film’s team first saw the footage of sparking power lines that ignited the destructive fires.
The news settled and we turned back to the other topics that he’s been focusing on: the vital dialogues of science, the challenging transitions of policy and funding, and the role of insurance as a potential pivot point to help us face wildfire’s risks to homes.
At the moment we were talking about the film itself, and the continuing conversations that the film prompts.
“Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire” is streaming on Apple TV, Google Play, and Amazon beginning June 13. Select your platform at elementalfilm.com/streaming-pre-sale.
From initial screenings of the film. Jennings learned that the film sells out in communities where there are effective partnerships working to face wildfire issues. In these communities, Jennings said, the audience may have “a little bit of experience with fire, and they’re curious what to do. They want ideas on how to move forward, they’re feeling vulnerable and concerned. And fire folks are excited about the film too and want to share it. Yet it’s hard for firefighters to say, there’s a limit to what we can do.”
Which is one component of the theme in Elemental. That what we’ve been doing isn’t solving the problems. “We point out the limits to suppression,” though Jennings added that “There’s not a world where we’re not going to fund fire suppression.” And the role that fire professionals play in an ongoing paradigm shift is key. In making the film and during screenings, Jennings observed the “incredible and rare social capital of firefighters” and how their observations of the fire challenge is helping communities change. He was also pleased that the film caught enough of the nuances of fire management and fire science so that it resonated with firefighters (as well as fire survivors and politicians).
The role and voices of firefighters, cultural burners (firelighters), fire scientists, community members and policy makers will all be required in reimagining fire (and all are represented in the film). “We need to change the way we’re thinking about the cultural narrative. When we say the problem is in the forest, it’s not a sufficient answer. The forest is a value at risk, not a solution [to be implemented by logging]. If we can separate fire safety conversations from forest product industry conversations. … if we can separate the conversations more, to let fire safety be its own topic and goal, then the film will be a huge win. And then we can have a more nuanced conversation that takes in the science.”
While suppression will always be a component, Jennings observed that what we fund when it comes to fire and fuels management needs to be focused on the values at risk, often the homes, which may not benefit from a distant forest treatment (and he notes that brush and grass fires, and home-to-home burning, can be as destructive as “forest” fires). Or, for that matter, a logging project packaged as fire safety.
Jennings pointed out that federal fuels management funding is often limited to federal lands, when the dollars would be more effective if they went directly to fire-hardening houses. “In California, the best numbers we can find show that only two of every hundred dollars is spent on the the home. The rest is spent on vegetation management. That’s part of what we help communicate in the film” … including the benefit of focusing on the home ignition zone, building on the work of Jack Cohen, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the Insurance Institute. of Business and Home Safety (IBHS). And to remember “that in one year we lost more homes in Paradise to fire than were built in California.”
Rebuilding homes is very expensive and fraught with legal and practical issues. “We’ve found ourselves in the insurance space,” Jennings said when the film first began to screen, in part because of ongoing work that Jennings and film producer/editor Sara Quinn are doing for the PBS Terra show “Weathered.”
Director Trip Jennings and producer/editor Sara Quinn filming at the El Dorado Fire for ‘Elemental.’ Photo: Ryan Walsh.
“It’s the story of what’s going on for so many people rebuilding after fires. A lot of people who got dropped from insurance after a fire, for instance, if their house didn’t burn all the way down. A lot of recovery efforts seem to help those who have time and financial resources.”
And the rates rise. “We talked to someone who paid $1000 total, now their insurance totals $4500. I might spend that money to improve my home, not on insurance.” When it comes to fuels treatment, he said “I think we need to see that where the money goes. Even if it goes to private homes, that is a huge private benefit but everyone is safer if we spend money preparing homes for wildfires. If we cant get out the loop that we can only spend [fuel treatment and preparedness funds] on public lands.”
With some insurers leaving home insurance markets, Jennings wondered if the challenge of identifying the specific cost of wildfire risk, and charging for that through the home insurance process, may be a watershed moment. Again he echoed the ability of the film to reach targeted audiences. With showings to insurance professionals and risk managers he anticipates they may see the value to more clearly identify homes and home clusters that are ready to coexist with fire, and to offer price adjustments for those prepared homes. “We began with FireWise and now the key may be more granular initiatives. Homes are beginning to be counted with the “Wildfire Prepared Home” program being rolled out by IBHS [in a California pilot program], but whether the neighbors are prepared isn’t counted yet. There’s no idea how to model and price the individual risk within a neighborhood.” Though the IBHS program is a key step that may allow homeowners and insurers to rate a home’s wildfire preparedness, which may also mesh with a wildfire risk-rating process by the First Street Foundation along with NFPA’s “Outthink Wildfire” strategy.
Of course, this week’s news and next week’s developments aren’t in the film, but Jennings believes the film is evergreen, in part because of the conversations it prompts (such as those we’ve had with Jennings over the past two months).
There is this and more in the film, of course, including an examination of the role of cultural burning in re-working our relationship with fire. And if our relationship with fire is complex, it is also, as the title reminds us, elemental. As elemental as the reminder that Jennings shared: the key to coexisting with fire begins within the five-foot zone adjacent to the house. “Since the 2008 WUI code, the science around the first five feet has developed a lot. Maybe it’s more important than any single thing.”
Multiple U.S. agencies have been compromised by attackers who had exploited flaws in popular software tool MOVEit and had collected information from a range of victims. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed Thursday that several federal agencies were affected but which agencies was not yet clear. 
