Sanctuary city illegal
immigrant sparks $61M fire in national forest, by Kristie McDonald, 10/26/16
Angel
Gilberto Garcia-Avalos had been deported five times in just the past four
years, yet each time he has managed to sneak from Mexico back into the U.S.,
where he ended up in more mischief: driving without a license, attempted
burglary and felony weapons charges.
From Washington
Times
In August, he
graduated to full-fledged mayhem, sparking a fire in the Sequoia National
Forest that has already cost the government $61 million and left some of the
country’s most beautiful landscape scarred for years to come.
Garcia, who
pleaded guilty last month and faces 13 months in prison, had only recently been
released from the Kern County Jail. He likely would have been deported again,
but local authorities were unable to report him to immigration authorities
because of California’s new sanctuary city law, which prohibited the sheriff
from communicating with federal agents.
Federal
agents now say they will kick Garcia out of the country once he serves his
latest sentence, but the damage has already been done.
At a point
along State Highway 155 through the Sequoia National Forest, the smell of cedar
gives way to the stench of soot. Ash-blackened trees above and below the
roadway show the path of the blaze.
Investigators
determined that the spark came from a Nissan Maxima that Garcia was driving
over a rough dirt trail near Cedar Creek. Garcia tried to drive over a berm and
hit a tree. The hot muffler on his car ignited grass parched by years of
drought, investigators said in an account filed in federal court.
Ranchers
rushing to the site of the fire saw Garcia who, despite the blaze raging over
his shoulder, insisted he wasn’t aware of it much less responsible for it.
Investigators
punctured his story by matching footprints from the car to those of Garcia and
his son.
Decades to
recover
John Chatel, an endangered species specialist who led the Forest Service’s evaluation team after the fire, said it wasn’t the most damaging burn he has seen but added that the effects could last for years.
John Chatel, an endangered species specialist who led the Forest Service’s evaluation team after the fire, said it wasn’t the most damaging burn he has seen but added that the effects could last for years.
Of the 29,000
acres that were touched by fire, more than half sustained moderate or
high-intensity burns. Communities were evacuated in two counties, and a handful
of cabins and outbuildings were scorched.
It took six
weeks to fully contain the fire. Officials warned at the beginning of October
that hot spots could persist until the first snows blanket the area and snuff
out the last vestiges.
The fire didn’t spread to Sequoia National Park to the north of the forest, which is home to groves of the majestic trees.
The fire didn’t spread to Sequoia National Park to the north of the forest, which is home to groves of the majestic trees.
But it took more than $60 million to contain and extinguish the blaze. Mr.
Chatel submitted an emergency restoration plan at a cost of $500,000. That
doesn’t include long-term restoration of campsites, cattle-grazing areas and
long-term revegetation.
Mr. Chatel
said the drought, now in its fifth year, probably will make it tougher for the
forest to recover.“It’s got to be really challenging — not impossible, but challenging
— for a lot of the forest that was there historically to come back in a
reasonable amount of time,” he said. “It’s going to take decades and decades
from a conifer standpoint to get back what you lost.”
Destroying
the landscape
Garcia has admitted
to his role in the fire but shows little remorse. Court documents say he got testy with the
ranchers when they accused him. “How am I going to start that fire?” he said.
“Does it look like I would do that?”
At one point while Garcia was talking with the ranchers, a glass
methamphetamine pipe fell out of his pocket and he quickly moved to conceal it,
Forest Service Special Agent Brian A. Adams wrote.
Garcia
claimed the Nissan Maxima, which belonged to his girlfriend’s mother, was
stolen when he and his son went to get some water — though there is no water
source anywhere in the vicinity, the agent said.
Fires sparked
by illegal immigrants are more common — and more controversial — along the
border. The federal government’s main fire information center tracks whether blazes
were sparked by humans but doesn’t record their nationality or legal status.
In 2011,
after a series of blazes in southern Arizona, Sen. John McCain blamed illegal
immigrants. He was resoundingly rebuked by immigrant rights groups that said
the Arizona Republican was speculating, scapegoating and spreading “hate and
fear.”
Months later,
the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ official nonpartisan watchdog,
backed up the senator. GAO investigators reviewed 77 human-caused fires along
the Arizona border and concluded that 30 of them were caused by illegal border
crossers.
Worse yet,
the presence of the illegal immigrants made fighting the fires even tougher.
One investigator told The Washington Times that armed agents had to accompany
firefighters.
In
California, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said the problems go beyond
fire. He said marijuana grows are becoming more frequent on federal lands. When
they are raided, the grows are usually found to be manned by illegal immigrants
— some of them forced into the labor. State and local law enforcement have
become engaged in shootouts at the grows.
“They’re
destroying the landscape of our national forest,” the sheriff told The
Washington Times.
Read Full Story At Washington
Times
http://eheadlines.com/sanctuary-city-illegal-immigrant-sparks-61m-fire-in-national-forest/
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