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24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

newsweek.com

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Re: 24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

#11

Post by bookofjoe »

legitster wrote: post #7

The headline is misleading. In the actual article, these weren't people deliberately trying to create wildfires, just selfish people flouting the fire ban and having a campfire/bbq. Presumably, at least. *Edit: https://www.smh.com.au/national/teenager-among-180-people-fa... More details. There was deliberate arson (like a teenager setting fire to cars), but not intentionally aimed at burning down forests.

From the article:

>Police in Australia have arrested and charged two dozen people they say deliberately lit blazes during the wildfire season that has so far killed at least 18 people, destroyed thousands of homes and ravaged over 10 million acres of land.

>New South Wales police said that since the beginning of November, 24 people have been charged over allegedly deliberately lighting fires as officers continue to investigate the role that arson has played in the devastation. Starting a wildfire can result in a jail sentence of up to 21 years.

Re: 24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

#13

Post by [deleted] »

AWildC182 wrote: post #4
sarcasmatwork wrote: post #2

Not a fan of newsweek, so here is an alt https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/01/07/clima...

The entire point of that townhall article is to push the blame away from climate change as if the absurd temperatures had nothing to do with this situation.

[deleted]

Re: 24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

#15

Post by takeda »

vuln wrote: post #8
lern_too_spel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're a fan of Townhall? Newsweek is just a summarizer, but Townhall is a spin rag. Nobody claims that climate change starts fires (how can an increase in temperature of a few degrees ignite a fire?) but that it makes the forest fire season longer in certain parts of the world. Your article sets up that strawman very prettily.

> Nobody claims that climate change starts fires https://www.c2es.org/content/wildfires-and-climate-change/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2912/satellite-data-record-sho... https://www.npr.org/2020/01/04/793572196/how-climate-change-... https://www.npr.org/2020/01/04/793572196/how-climate-change-...

I don't see these articles contradicting on what he said.

Re: 24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

#16

Post by droopyEyelids »

bookofjoe wrote: post #11
legitster wrote: post #7

The headline is misleading. In the actual article, these weren't people deliberately trying to create wildfires, just selfish people flouting the fire ban and having a campfire/bbq. Presumably, at least. *Edit: https://www.smh.com.au/national/teenager-among-180-people-fa... More details. There was deliberate arson (like a teenager setting fire to cars), but not intentionally aimed at burning down forests.

From the article: >Police in Australia have arrested and charged two dozen people they say deliberately lit blazes during the wildfire season that has so far killed at least 18 people, destroyed thousands of homes and ravaged over 10 million acres of land. >New South Wales police said that since the beginning of November, 24 people have been charged over allegedly deliberately lighting fires as officers continue to i…

Right, but that is ambiguous and potentially deceptive.

Note the first sentence you quoted, where they are trying to combine the deaths with the arrests, but don't actually do it.

On the Reddit thread Australians are talking about how this includes kids that were setting off unauthorized fireworks and people who were welding outside in fire control areas.

Re: 24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

#17

Post by misterprime »

legitster wrote: post #7

The headline is misleading. In the actual article, these weren't people deliberately trying to create wildfires, just selfish people flouting the fire ban and having a campfire/bbq. Presumably, at least. *Edit: https://www.smh.com.au/national/teenager-among-180-people-fa... More details. There was deliberate arson (like a teenager setting fire to cars), but not intentionally aimed at burning down forests.

That statement is about the 180 people. But read it again and you'll see that 24 were arrested for starting brush fires specifically.

Here's another article from the Sydney Morning Herald.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/teenager-among-180-people-fa...

Re: 24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

#18

Post by flaque »

mikece wrote: post #10

Wait... it's arson? But the global climate crisis forced these people to set the fires, right? (Just want to get my talking points right.)

Stop with the strawman. A dryer, hotter climate will cause fires to get larger and do more damage. No one says that a hotter climate will cause the initial burn spontaneously.

Re: 24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

#19

Post by legitster »

vuln wrote: post #8
lern_too_spel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're a fan of Townhall? Newsweek is just a summarizer, but Townhall is a spin rag. Nobody claims that climate change starts fires (how can an increase in temperature of a few degrees ignite a fire?) but that it makes the forest fire season longer in certain parts of the world. Your article sets up that strawman very prettily.

> Nobody claims that climate change starts fires https://www.c2es.org/content/wildfires-and-climate-change/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2912/satellite-data-record-sho... https://www.npr.org/2020/01/04/793572196/how-climate-change-... https://www.npr.org/2020/01/04/793572196/how-climate-change-...

> Hotter and drier conditions also set the stage for human-ignited fires. "In the Western U.S., people are accidentally igniting fires all the time," Randerson said. "But when we have a period of extreme weather, high temperatures, low humidity, then it’s more likely that typical outdoor activity might lead to an accidental fire that quickly gets out of control and becomes a large wildfire."

Re: 24 people arrested and charged with arson causing Australian wildfires

#20

Post by nesky »

> New South Wales police said that since the beginning of November, 24 people have been charged over allegedly deliberately lighting fires as officers continue to investigate the role that arson has played in the devastation.

> Police in the state have also taken legal action against a further 159 people. Among them are 53 people who allegedly failed to comply with a total fire ban and 47 people who allegedly discarded a lit cigarette or match on land.

So is the premise these people deliberately attempted to set wildfires ablaze or are they charging them with arson for ignoring a total fire ban?

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