Edward Fredrick Wackerman of Mariposa, Calif., has been arrested on suspicion of aggravated arson, arson that causes great bodily injury, and arson causing damage or destruction of inhabited structures, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal Fire, said in a statement.
Wackerman is suspected of starting the Oak Fire in Mariposa County in the Sierra Nevada in July 2022. No charges have been filed as yet, and authorities aren’t saying why Wackerman is a suspect.
The fire “injured three firefighters, burned 19,244 acres (30 square miles, 77 square kilometers) of land, and destroyed 127 homes and 66 outbuildings, Cal Fire said” according to WSAZ.
CAL FIRE Law Enforcement Officers arrested 71-year-old Edward Fredrick Wackerman in connection to the destructive Oak Fire last year that burned over 19,000 acres.
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(Photo: MCSO) pic.twitter.com/jZoGsVrFt2— FOX26 News (@KMPHFOX26) June 17, 2023
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Wackerman donated to several Democrats in the past.
“The arson suspect has donated $1,775 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2020, government records show, including a $1,000 donation to Tim Ryan’s failed U.S. Senate campaign in 2022 and $400 to the Lincoln Project, a disgraced liberal super PAC,” says WFB.
“Why? Why did he do it? Why did he feel he had to do that and destroy so many people’s lives? It’s sad,” said one Mariposa resident.
Well, Democrats were promoting the idea that wildfires are caused by climate change. Maybe Wackerman was trying to give them a hand.
“Thank you to all the firefighters and first responders working tirelessly under difficult conditions to combat the #OakFire,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) wrote on Twitter on July 25, 2022. “Worsening drought and severe weather will only continue to put lives and property at risk from wildfire if we don’t take climate action NOW.”
“More people will be killed and the survival of our civilization is at stake,” former Vice President Al Gore said on July 24, 2022, citing climate change as the reason “droughts and fires are hitting us so hard.”
It’s extremely unlikely that Wackerman was trying to help Democrats “prove” climate change by setting fires. More likely, he’s a firebug who likes to watch the world burn. But Wackerman’s arson points to the very real problem that politicians have with blaming every wildfire, heatwave, cold snap, and unusual weather occurrence on climate change.
Back in the day when there was a recognition that “climate” and “weather” were two different subjects that only TV weathermen and Al Gore were trying to connect unusual weather events and climate change. Today, they’re not even trying to differentiate them. You can’t gin up hysteria about the climate if you blame something on the weather.
And that has made any discussion of climate change a political discussion and not a scientific debate.
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