Continued from February 2024 (See PART 2 by Clicking Here)
3. MOTIVATION FOR STARTING THE WASHBURN FIRE (continued):
Possible Insider # 2: NPS Associate(s): Note two other areas of motivation cited by the USFA Special Report: revenge and profit. Revenge can be as subtle as sensing an injustice and feeling frustrated and wanting to right a wrong by taking things into one’s own hands. The event or circumstance that is perceived as a wrong may have occurred months or years prior to the fire-setting activity. Research on arsonists suggests that they “undergo a mental process referred to as RPM: the arsonist rationalizes the crime, projects blame, and minimizes the consequences.“ – USFA Special Report, page 8
Even a compelling personality feature could motivate an individual to start a fire. For example, a person with obsessive-compulsive traits may find that tracts of forests untreated for decades with fire management tools produces anxiety. In order to soothe or “bind” the anxiety, the person starts a fire in an effort to “clear the forest” (i.e., anxiety). – Further reading is available by clicking here.
Another motivating force focuses on profit, but not necessarily money. Fame, status, and job promotions can be sufficient allure to produce behavior that may be justified in the mind of the arsonist. Wikipedia addresses the “publish or perish” phenomenon where institutions place high value on published research. Researchers may also see this as a way to “pad” their curriculum vitae to impress prospective employees, and to give a nod to their expertise. Demonstrating one’s prowess in generating published research can easily be equated to the statistics tabulated by professional athletes, such as number of goals, touchdowns, receptions, or yards gained. Like an athlete, the more robust the researcher’s output, the more “profit” derived from it. This makes the Hankin, et al (2023) study all the more intriguing given its quick completion and submission for publication within 19 weeks of the end of the Washburn Fire, almost appearing as if the research was planned in advance.
With that in mind, might there be an NPS “insider” with specialized knowledge who could answer the following interview questions that might reveal possible motives for starting the Washburn Fire? Let’s use that NPS research paper, Hankin, et al (2023), to allow us to speculate.
1. Might anyone within the NPS blame institutional fire practices from the past that produced areas of fuel build-up in the Washburn Fire footprint causing anxiety over the risks it posed?
The Hankin, et al (2023) report states: “The Washburn fire burned rapidly through steep terrain without any known fire history, characterized by abundant dead and downed fuels and dense ladder fuels. These forest conditions are the legacy of almost a century of fire suppression and the horizontal and vertical fuel continuity facilitated rapid fire spread, intense fire behavior, and high resistance to control.”
2. Might anyone within the NPS feel frustrated over limited resources to provide proper levels of fuel management in Yosemite?
The Hankin, et al (2023) report states: “. . . the problem remains greater than the capacity of individual fire management programs, particularly in the face of prolonged wildfire seasons.”
3. Might anyone within the NPS justify or rationalize the Washburn Fire due to lack of opportunities to study specific features of fuels management?
The Hankin, et al (2023) report states: “. . . there are few opportunities to directly link historical and contemporary fuels treatments to unplanned wildfire operations and outcomes (but see Moghaddas and Craggs 2007).”
“ . . . therefore the Washburn fire presented an opportunity to evaluate the direct impact of a long-term fire management program.”
4. Might anyone within the NPS minimize the consequences of the Washburn Fire by attributing value to it despite the financial, human, and ecological costs?
The Hankin, et al (2023) report states: “The Washburn fire is a valuable demonstration of how fuels treatments are incorporated into wildfire suppression tactics to accomplish incident objectives.”
5. Might anyone within the NPS have specialized knowledge of the Washburn Fire ignition point which could predict the burn direction?
The Hankin, et al (2023) report states: “The fire started at the southwest corner of the Mariposa Grove, where it could move uphill rapidly into the grove and threaten its hundreds of mature trees . . . Furthermore, dense and steep forested terrain stood between the Mariposa Grove and the community of Wawona . . .“
“The Washburn fire burned rapidly through steep terrain without any known fire history, characterized by abundant dead and downed fuels and dense ladder fuels . . . horizontal and vertical fuel continuity facilitated rapid fire spread, intense fire behavior, and high resistance to control.”
“ . . . tree torching from the point of ignition was casting embers long distances to ignite spot fires mid-slope, deep within an untreated forested area with limited fire history. These spot fires quickly developed into head fire running upslope and exhibited extreme fire behavior, with short crown runs and flame lengths exceeding 60 m (pers. comm. P. Bevington, Fig. 6).”
6. Might anyone within the NPS possess specialized knowledge about Yosemite’s fuel management program to be able to predict the progression of the Washburn Fire?
The Hankin, et al (2023) report states: “Reduced tree densities and surface fuels were important considerations in suppression tactics and resource prioritization when the Washburn Fire started.”
“Fuels reduction and prescribed fire have been at the core of Yosemite’s fire management program since the 1970s and much of this activity has been concentrated in the two areas where firefighting operations were most successful in protecting key resources . . .”
“Without the rich history of fuels reduction and prescribed fire in and surrounding these highly valued resources, this wildfire could have had a very different outcome for these irreplaceable communities.”
“It was also an area with a rich history of fuels treatments and prescribed fire surrounding these highly valued natural resources . . . “
“The Mariposa Grove . . . remains a focal area for Yosemite fire and fuels management. Over 1,821 hectares have been treated by prescribed fire in the Mariposa Grove and surrounding areas near the community of Wawona since 1970 . . .”
“The biomass thinning projects along Wawona Road also facilitated quick and effective holding operations with limited resources. As fire reached thinned areas, flame lengths were reduced and fire intensity decreased significantly (pers. comm. P. Bevington).
7. Might anyone in the NPS benefit from research culminating in a published article that urges more priority given to Fire Management to ensure job security?
The Hankin, et al (2023) report states: ‘These data highlight the need for continued and frequent, repeated treatments to maintain lower fuel loads, prevent encroachment of abundant shade-tolerant tree species, and continue to act as effective barriers to fire spread.”
“The distribution and magnitude of heavy fuels across the Sierra Nevada will require extensive fuels reduction treatments to prevent the spread of catastrophic fire and ultimately, protect anthropogenic and ecological communities.”
“Ongoing efforts to prioritize fuel treatments based on resource values and risk assessments coupled with evaluating the effectiveness of these treatments when disturbances occur will allow managers to have the widest impact and make progress towards accomplishing protection and resource management goals.”
The questions posed above and their potential answers as displayed allow speculation about how an NPS “Insider” could have assisted in planning the Washburn Fire. Sufficient motivation may have existed.
This highlights the need for direct interviews to allow for factual evidence to buttress any definitive conclusions. Those interviews might also reveal if researchers benefited by transitioning to a more prestigious employment position after the publication of the article. Additionally, interviews could expose relationships between firefighters and researchers which might potentiate collusion regarding the start of the Washburn Fire.
Did an “Insider” plan and ignite the Washburn Fire? What do you think?
POSTSCRIPT: The Washburn Fire -- Arson Confirmed (4-10-24)
I am not a fire investigator. I do know how to gather facts, however, and determine outcomes based on those facts. The facts eliminate some possibilities and point toward others.
I agree with what MrStatsLikesDiscs wrote on this Reddit comment about eight years ago regarding fire investigations:
“I think it is important to mention that the fire investigator’s job is to determine the Origin and Cause of the fire. It should not be with the goal of proving arson. As an investigator you should always be objectively providing the facts of the case, not trying to prove a point.”
So, I did not originally intend to identify arson as the cause of the Washburn Fire. I simply began writing about thoughts I had while sitting on the deck of the Mariposa Grove Museum about a year after the fire had started. As I pondered the destruction left by the Washburn Fire and muddled about the oddity of a fire starting near the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias when lovely blue skies prevailed, I started to ask questions. Each question led me deeper into a reality suggesting that something criminal had occurred in this precious National Park.
The coincidences that accumulated formed a fingerprint of an intentionally started fire motivated by someone who gained benefit despite how damaging the blaze came to be to its victims (i.e., Yosemite and its visitors). Shortly after the fire started, the origin and cause of the Washburn Fire had already been identified by the Yosemite National Park Superintendent, Cicely Muldoon. She stated that a “human” had started the fire. If criminal behavior motivated this “unplanned” fire, should not that be known as well?
I am convinced the Washburn Fire ignited intentionally at the hands of another person or persons. I am not the only one who believes this. In wrapping up my research on this subject, I found the chart depicted below on the Calfire website. Sadly, it also confirms that the “human(s)” who started the Washburn Fire did so intentionally and is guilty of arson.
This does not answer the question of who started the Washburn Fire and whether it was an “Inside Job.” As I stated in Parts 1 & 2 of this three-part series, interviews remain an essential piece of the fire investigation. Until completed, no conclusions can be made about the specific “human” who may have started the Washburn Fire. Nevertheless, I discovered in my research that the lead researcher on the published paper referred to above did “coincidentally” change employment from “Fire Ecologist” with Yosemite National Park to “Assistant Regional Ecologist” for the US Forest Service. This occurred 11 months after the Washburn Fire ended and a few months after the research paper referenced above appeared in print. – See image below
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