The Same Thing Happened Last Year In The Pinelands
“As If On Cue”
Meanwhile, DEP Exempts wildfire Smoke From Air Pollution Inventory
(Caption: Delaware River near Watergap, 5 acre fire in Worthington State Forest, photo by Bruce Scruton, NJ Herald)
Firefighter arson is a persistent phenomenon involving a very small minority of firefighters who are also active arsonists.[1] Fire-fighting organizations are aware of this problem. Some of the offenders seem to be motivated by boredom, or by the prospect of receiving attention for responding to the fires they have set.
It has been reported that roughly 100 U.S. firefighters are convicted of arson each year.[3][4] ~~~ Wikipedia
For the last few years, DEP Commissioner LaTourette, the DEP Forest Fire Service, and DEP Press Office have been flogging the wildfire issue, greatly exaggerating the risks.
They have conducted an unprecedented campaign of media events, tours, press releases, prescribed burn media demonstrations, and legislative testimony, see:
The DEP’s public relations campaign coincided with rising public awareness of western wildfires and strong public opposition to the smoke and forest destruction created by DEP’s “prescribed burn” program. Public awareness was spurred by the national scandal of a US Forest Service “prescribed burn” in New Mexico that caused one of the largest wildfires in southwestern history. That disaster forced USFS to impose a moratorium and review and reform its prescribed burn program.
That USFS accident should have shed light and triggered critical scrutiny of DEP’s prescribed burn program and well as misguided recent legislation that eliminated liability for damages caused by prescribed burns that get out of control. But that review never occurred, e.g. see:
Instead, DEP recently took steps to deregulate prescribed burns and exempt the unhealthy smoke they create from the air pollution inventory mandated by the federal Clean Air Act.
This demonstration aims to exclude certain ozone monitoring data from April 13, 2023, June 2, 2023, and June 29 – 30, 2023, due to the impact of multiple wildfires on New Jersey’s ozone air quality. …. A copy of the Department’s proposed Exceptional Event Demonstration is available on the Department’s website at public-notice-and-2023-ozone-ee-demo.pdf (nj.gov).
The DEP public relations efforts have paid off by diverting any critical review of DEP, instead portraying DEP Forest Fire Service and prescribed burns very favorably. The campaign’s success includes millions of dollars in federal grants and state appropriations: (DEP press release):
The Murphy Administration responded to the busy fire year by supporting the Forest Fire Service with a $3 million budget boost in FY23 to enhance protection of lives and property through investments in new equipment and staff.
Yesterday, when I received the DEP press release warning the public about risks of wildfire and touting DEP’s prescribed burn program, I was thinking about Tweeting “The arson starts tomorrow”.
Seriously.
And I’ll be damned, just one day later, there was an unusual small wildfire in the Delaware Gap. That fire occurred not only one day after DEP’s press release, but less than a mile from a DEP prescribed burn.
And it generated the same very favorable media coverage and support for DEP’s controversial prescribed burn program. The local newspaper story read like a DEP press release.(see the NJ Herald story by pro-logging DEP transcriber Bruce Scruton, who also mis-reported the controversial DEP logging on Sparta Mountain).
Exactly the same thing happened last year in the Pinelands – when I recall asking reporters to look into the proximity of the wildfire to the DEP prescribed burn program.
The DEP attributed the cause of that remote Pinelands fire to a campfire, which I also found highly suspect given its remote location and low probability of campers being in that area at that time of year and day of week.
Even NJ Spotlight expressed skepticism and dropped a hint: (quote from Spotlight email)
- As if on cue, the firefighting service tonight reported a five-acre blaze near the Delaware Water Gap, which they say is unrelated to an earlier prescribed burn in the area.
Yes, as if on cue. They say.