The road to Hell is paved with good intentions…burning down our wildlands
by Hugh Holub on Jun. 08, 2011, under environment water and energy, politics
Murphy Fire west of Tubac...photo by Hugh Holub
There has been a major controversy in the borderlands for several years between border security advocates who want to finish the border fence and concentrate Border Patrol Agents at the border versus environmental advocates who want to protect the environment along the border for endangered species.
This conflict was highlighted in a Government Accounting Office report that documented how federal lan managers whose goal is environmental protection clash with the Border Patrol.
GAO confirms federal environmental laws and federal land managers hinder securing our border
Republicans Introduce Bill to Secure Border on Federal Lands, Protect Environment
It is very widely suspected that the Horsehshoe 2 Fire in the Chiricahuas as well as the Muprhy Fire and the Pajarita Fire west of Nogales were started by illegal aliens or drug smugglers.
Why is this the case?
First, there have been lots of fires started in the borderlands by drug smugglers creating diversions. There are evenb radio traffic intercepts where the cartel goons ordered fires to be started.
There have also been a lot of fires started by accident by illegal aliens. How do we know this? First off there are widely known smuggling trails through the countryside. You find a camp where the fire started from…with debris of stuff bought in Mexico….connect the dots?
These camps where illegal aliens pause are all over our countryside. If you want to see one, just walk behind the store on the frontage road in Tubac.
These are undispted facts in the borderlands that illegal aliens are accidentally causing fires and that drug smugglers are deliberately starting them. Folks are peeved that the Forest Service seems to be playing politically correct games about the cause of these fires.
Politically correct fire stories…who is burning down our wildlands?
Here is some of the communications I’ve gotten about the fires:
Murphy Fire:
This photograph was taken today, June 3, 2011. Inside the center of smoke plume is the Atascosa Ranch, residence of David and Edith Lowell, in Rio Rico, Arizona. Ten miles north of the Mexican Border.
The Forest Service determined to allow this fire to jump Peck Canyon South and go up the North face of the Atascosa Mountains rather than attempt to control the fire, they are simply watching the fire now for four days rather than trying to fight it or control it.
The North Lowell allotment grazing pastures went up in smoke the last three days and the Forest Service is going to allow the second allotment to go up today. The Lowell’s will have to sell their cattle because there is no grass for them to graze on.
The drums along the border say that Border Patrol jumped a group of 12 marijuana backpackers who intentionally set the mountains on fire to effect their escape. Allegedly, between two and three of the illegal alien marijuana backpackers were apprehended and admitted setting the fire. Also, one of these arsonists is reported to be on life support at a local American hospital.
The beating drums also say that the Forest Service will not admit that the fire was caused by illegal aliens, only that it is human caused.
The border is not secure, America is in jeopardy as are all residents along the Arizona Border. Do not believe otherwise.
………
….the Murphy fire entirely consumed our son’s allotment (the Murphy allotment that formerly belonged to the Cummings) and burned all of ours down to the natural gas line. We had some anxious moments yesterday afteroon and even packed up some belongings, but I have now moved most of them back into the house from my car! The plan is for the fire to go on its way south along the gas line at least to the Ruby Rd. We hear it has crossed over the ridge at the top of our Ramanote allotment into Bear Valley. From now on it will be easy to tell who has been walking through this popular gateway to the U.S because they will be all covered with black smudges!
Take a look at this map which shows the Murphy Fire origins. https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/ftp/InciWeb/AZCNF/2011-06-01-15:25-murphy-fire/picts/pict-20110607-235548-1.jpeg
Those familiar with the area know that there is zero chance a hiker or hunter or someone was out on the smuggling trails at night where those two fires started.
The irony is that the Pajarita Wildnerss Area (where the second fire started) has been partially destroyed (and may ultimately be 100% wiped out before this is over) and virtually all of the proposed Tumacacori Highlands Wilderness Area has been destroyed by the fires.
Rather than compromise and allow border security to be tightened at the border…. the obvious goal of open border and environmental advocates has been to prevent the Border Patrol from being concentrated at the border.
This leaves the areas open near the border to drug smugglers and illegal aliens.
Open border and environmental advocates kept both the area west of Nogales open to illegal entry and drug smugling, as well as the smuggling corridor open into the Chiricahua Mountains.
There are some folks now asking the question….where does the money come from to fuel environmental groups and open border advocates who fight Border Patrol access to the border? With billions of dollars at stake, it is not unrealistic to guess that through secondary pipelines some drug cartel money could be ending up supporting anti-border security efforts.
Illegal aliens and drugs smugglers could give a rat’s rear end about protecting our environment.
The result is a lot of wild country is gone now.
As they say…”the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”.
________________________________________________
Politically correct fire stories…who is burning down our wildlands?
The fire next door….this time in Tubac..updated information
Chiricahua Mountains … another “sky island” turned to ash
There Are No Cool Heads in Portal…commentary by Ed Ashurst
Forest Service Takes Heat Over Using Fire Retardant to Fight Wildfires
June 8th, 2011 on 6:18 am
If I send you an uncorroborated communication contending that aliens from Pluto started the fire, will you publish this and contend that it is fact? You start out with “widely suspected” and end up with “undisputed facts”, Hugh. Consider for a minute that you are just finding “facts” that support what you want to believe.
Maybe migrants or smugglers started the fires. I don’t know if they did or not; neither do you, nor does anyone else at this point. However they started, it is indeed very sad what is happening.
June 8th, 2011 on 6:50 am
Sources are known by me and highly credible…including former law enforcement officers.
The problem here is we have a serious border security problem being mismaneged so as to not offend people who advocate open borders and who put protecting a corridor for jaguars over protecting the people here.
June 8th, 2011 on 7:11 am
Just me, but I don’t put law enforcement officers, past or present, in the “highly credible” category. Nonetheless, why not quote them?
I agree that there is a “border problem”, but it is a reach to blame it all on people adovcating a more sensible immigration policy and/or environmentalists. Of all the people you have ever talked to on these pages or elsewhere, I am probably the only one who actually advocates an “open border” and I have an alibi for the dates of the fires. I also think the fires and the destruction they are causing to a place you obviously care a great deal about has made you very angry.
Now, like all good commies, it is time for me to go off to labor. I’ll look forward to reading the further comments tonight. Have the best day you can under the circumstances down there.
June 8th, 2011 on 7:33 am
Hold on there. Wile driving near Tubac I could have sworn I saw some old guy with a pony tail and Birkenstocks and a Hawaiian shirt holding some lighter fluid and a box of matches.
As for your “Open Borders” stance well ….
June 9th, 2011 on 7:13 am
LOL. It certainly sounds like me.
June 8th, 2011 on 8:21 am
And sources include fire fighters.
Lets see…fire starts at night on a trail (there are lots of them across the countryside which is another problem) where no vehicles can get near. We had 3 of them near our place.
Investigators go out and find where fire started….camp site….conclusion is reached that 99% probability fire was started by illegal aliens passing through….officials used to report that conclusion…now they don’t for some reason.
Fire fighters encounter druyg mule trains…drug smugglers drop loads and run…fire fighters call Border Patrol to deal with situation. Border Patrol shows up and picks up back packs full of marijuana. Just another day on the border.
Very little actually done to try and connect the fire to a specific arsonist because how do you do that when they are illegal and hiding in the country?
Ends up on the books as another human caused fire source unknown.
June 9th, 2011 on 7:10 am
Fire fighters are certainly more believable. They have less of an axe to grind.
The hypothetical situation you have created certainly seems possible. At least here’s no grand conspiracy by the cartels involved; just an untended fire left smoldering in the morning by some poor sap trying to survive by schlepping 80 lbs of pot through the desert who gets cold at night.
Does it seem likely that getting mad and increasing the penalties will change the hypothetical? How about the likelihood of increased enforcement? It’s gonna get cold at night and people are going to light fires to stay warm. That story is even older than borders or drugs. Maybe we could give up on the policy of funneling migrants into the wilderness. It is documented that the original idea was that nobody would make that trek and obviously that idea has been proven erroneous, so why stubbornly stick to a policy that has clearly failed?
The ranchers, the poor guy risking his life to carry a bundle of weeds, the land, the animals, the BP folks – all victims of forces beyond their control. The stupidity and the self interest of old white guys in D.C. and old Spanish guys in Mexico City is indeed a force to be reckoned with.
June 8th, 2011 on 7:50 am
Let’s take the money away from the illegal alien equation; let’s let ordinary Americans grow a little marijuana in their own back yards. Jesus said to do unto others as we would have them to do unto us. None of us would want our child thrown in jail with the sexual predators over marijuana. None of us would want to see an older family member’s home confiscated and sold by the police for growing a couple of marijuana plants for their aches and pains. It’s time to stop putting our own family members in jail over marijuana.Next step: How about $100 for a permit to grow a dozen plants? We can use the money for our schools, and it will put the drug gangs out of business for good!
June 8th, 2011 on 8:24 am
What planet are you from?
June 8th, 2011 on 8:43 am
Prohibition CAUSES all of this. America is in jeopardy as are all residents along the Arizona Border, because of prohibition. Do not believe otherwise.
June 9th, 2011 on 6:24 am
spellcheck before puvlishing please.
June 9th, 2011 on 10:12 am
I’ve been angry with the situation on the border and now the border fires that practically everyone unofficially has been saying were started by illegal aliens. It’s not hard for me to believe illegals did it when I’ve personally witnessed a group of illegals warming themselves by a big campfire they started directly under the dead branches of the 20′ canopy of an Ironwood tree on a cold dry morning.
That said, let’s look at some other possibilities. In this economy anything is possible. Several years ago a major wildfire in Colorado was started intentionally by a mentally unstable employee of the Forest Service who had just been jilted by her boyfriend. We also know that either the Rodeo or the Chediski fire was set by a hungry out-of-work firefighter trying to make a job for himself. That was before the 2008 start of the current economic depression.
Today there are a lot of people in dire straits economically with their houses underwater and out of work. It’s not difficult to imagine another hungry unemployed firefighter looking for work and setting fires some place where the knee-jerk reaction is to point the finger of blame immediately at illegal alliens. These fires have brought a lot of high paid employment to thousands of firefighters. They get overtime and hazard pay premiums. We can just as reasonably blame one of them as we can blame the illegals with the same level of information that we have.
It would be easy for an ecoterrorist to do the same if they were simply believers of the religious movement that says houses and people and mining and cattle don’t belong anywhere on the Earth except maybe jammed into high-rise boxes surrounded by asphalt, and they just think it’s the right thing to do to try to burn people off the rural landscape.
Then again, I don’t put it past the smuggling cartels to use big smokescreens to move drugs, money and illegal workers. I just wonder where they will find trees for cover after it’s all over. Maybe they are trying to clear the landscape so they can invade our country more easily with the new Mad Max tanks they are deploying to our southern border.
One thing I don’t understand is how Congress can justify tens of millions of dollars overnight to fight fires that very well may have been started by drug runners as a smokescreen or illegal immigrants trying to stay warm, but it’s much more difficult for Congress to justify half as much money to protect the border and prevent illegals from starting any wildfires in the first place.