Pyro-terrorism and Homeland Security
“Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles around to watch you burn.” (John Wesley)
I have been warning for many years that our degraded forests and cities embedded in the wildland urban interface are at grave risk of a devastating terrorist attack that could incinerate both forest and city in a very short amount time. It often takes days to evacuate a large city for a flood or a hurricane. The loss of life and property could approach that of the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo in World War Two. We have built and planted the heavy fuel load bombs in our forests and cities the equivalent of multiple atomic warheads through decades of fire suppression in light fire and catastrophic fire ecosystems. Now all a terrorist has to do is simply light the fuse rather than drop the bomb.
Ironically the greatest pyro-terrorist threat could arise out of the firefighting community. There are thousands of people in the firefighting and fire management community that have the skills to ignite a line of fire upwind of one or more major cities. According to Wikipedia there are on the average 100 firefighter caused arson convictions a year in the United States alone and thats only the ones that got caught. If even some of these bad apples with firefighting skills move beyond simple arson into pyro-terrorism it could be catastrophic.
All it takes is one or more rogue firefighter trained pyro-terrorists either, domestic or international, to incinerate a city. So far arsonists have ignited single ignition mega-fires around the world where people have the time to evacuate. In the case of a multiple ignition pyro-terrorism mega-fire there would not be time to evacuate because the city and its people could be incinerated in less that a hour. Fortunately local governments can protect themselves from this threat by building prescribed fire buffers in critical areas around towns and cities. Perth Australia and Flagstaff Arizona have taken the lead in building prescribed fire buffers.
I am not alone in this assessment as I first got onto this grave danger and wrote about it in my book, Fire in Nature: A Fire Activists Guide after reading the Homeland Security report that I found on the Internet. Since that time even Forest Service employees have been lecturing on the danger. Not long ago I found a Wildfire Today article written at the beginning of 2018 and spread it around. Recently when checking the Internet I found this homeland security paper right at the top of the page on a search engine. In it the author of the paper is trying to warn not only the public, but his own people as to the grave danger we have put ourselves in. It’s no accident that this is a public document and right at the top of major search engines. Pyro-Terrorism: the Threat of Arson Induced Forest Fires as a Future Terrorist Weapon of Mass Destruction
“It is the political and psychological effect that differentiates pyro-terrorism from arson. This paper will describe pyro-terrorism, discuss how existing terror tactics and future intent define the threat, assess the vulnerabilities in America today, and identify various actions the US government must take to mitigate those vulnerabilities. The potential destructive energy already exists in our nation's forests. An opportunistic terrorist can unleash multiple fires creating a conflagration potentially equal to a multi-megaton nuclear weapon. If terrorist organizations use arson as a tactic, and publicly assume responsibility for these massive fires, the perception of Homeland Security among the people would drastically erode. The fire's devastation could overwhelm suppression resources, weaken regional economies, destroy critical infrastructure, effect readiness in military forces, and put political pressure on national leadership for policy change."
There are those who think we should not be spreading this kind of information around as it might give terrorists ideas. Homeland Security obviously thinks otherwise. My own opinion is that some terrorists are plenty smart and don’t need any help and in fact they themselves don’t want to have the material spread around. This, lest more amateur terrorists jump the gun, and do just enough damage to cause the nations of the world to beef up their woefully inadequate defenses with billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars. Folks are sounding the alarm around the world has can be seen by this Polish Pyro-Terrorism Article. In this Blog Article Fire is One of the Soldiers of Allah the author talks about the ember bombs being dropped from kites recently and what the terrorists are saying about using fire as a weapon of mass destruction. This person who was recently in California visiting relatives, talks about how California is now in the sights of the terrorists because of recent mega-fires there.
The funds now being distributed to mitigate the huge fuel loads in our forests and the parts of cities built in the wildland urban interface are just too little too late as in the 2018 California wildfire billion dollar bill to be spent on wildfire mitigation over 5 years. I don’t see any kind of game changer distribution of funds until we get attacked. The best case scenario will be a blundered operation that scares the hell out of everybody and worst the incineration of one or more cities in less than an hour leaving no chance for the population to escape.
What the public does not understand is that the whole city does not have to be hit by the head fire. Even if the fire goes out at the edge of the city the embers will blanket the whole city, igniting homes and buildings that are not fire hardened and have defensible space around them. Any building that has a flammable roof with straw or leaves in the gutters, or flammable siding with flammable vegetation alongside or in the yard, has a very good chance of burning to the ground taking nearby homes even fire hardened homes with it. It is a fact that embers can even be sucked into ventilation shafts to ignite and burn the home or other building from the inside out. Fire adapted trees burn out the competition for living space and when planted near a home the home is the competition!
Note - Copy and Distribute Freely - On our Facebook group Association of Fire Management Activists we post on a regular basis articles relating to fire for reading, discussion and sharing. Folks are welcome to join and keep up with the fire news. On this website you can also read this, my fire book, for free starting with the introduction at the top and then to the MORE button for the rest of the chapters and other recent articles. Welcome on board.
I have been warning for many years that our degraded forests and cities embedded in the wildland urban interface are at grave risk of a devastating terrorist attack that could incinerate both forest and city in a very short amount time. It often takes days to evacuate a large city for a flood or a hurricane. The loss of life and property could approach that of the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo in World War Two. We have built and planted the heavy fuel load bombs in our forests and cities the equivalent of multiple atomic warheads through decades of fire suppression in light fire and catastrophic fire ecosystems. Now all a terrorist has to do is simply light the fuse rather than drop the bomb.
Ironically the greatest pyro-terrorist threat could arise out of the firefighting community. There are thousands of people in the firefighting and fire management community that have the skills to ignite a line of fire upwind of one or more major cities. According to Wikipedia there are on the average 100 firefighter caused arson convictions a year in the United States alone and thats only the ones that got caught. If even some of these bad apples with firefighting skills move beyond simple arson into pyro-terrorism it could be catastrophic.
All it takes is one or more rogue firefighter trained pyro-terrorists either, domestic or international, to incinerate a city. So far arsonists have ignited single ignition mega-fires around the world where people have the time to evacuate. In the case of a multiple ignition pyro-terrorism mega-fire there would not be time to evacuate because the city and its people could be incinerated in less that a hour. Fortunately local governments can protect themselves from this threat by building prescribed fire buffers in critical areas around towns and cities. Perth Australia and Flagstaff Arizona have taken the lead in building prescribed fire buffers.
I am not alone in this assessment as I first got onto this grave danger and wrote about it in my book, Fire in Nature: A Fire Activists Guide after reading the Homeland Security report that I found on the Internet. Since that time even Forest Service employees have been lecturing on the danger. Not long ago I found a Wildfire Today article written at the beginning of 2018 and spread it around. Recently when checking the Internet I found this homeland security paper right at the top of the page on a search engine. In it the author of the paper is trying to warn not only the public, but his own people as to the grave danger we have put ourselves in. It’s no accident that this is a public document and right at the top of major search engines. Pyro-Terrorism: the Threat of Arson Induced Forest Fires as a Future Terrorist Weapon of Mass Destruction
“It is the political and psychological effect that differentiates pyro-terrorism from arson. This paper will describe pyro-terrorism, discuss how existing terror tactics and future intent define the threat, assess the vulnerabilities in America today, and identify various actions the US government must take to mitigate those vulnerabilities. The potential destructive energy already exists in our nation's forests. An opportunistic terrorist can unleash multiple fires creating a conflagration potentially equal to a multi-megaton nuclear weapon. If terrorist organizations use arson as a tactic, and publicly assume responsibility for these massive fires, the perception of Homeland Security among the people would drastically erode. The fire's devastation could overwhelm suppression resources, weaken regional economies, destroy critical infrastructure, effect readiness in military forces, and put political pressure on national leadership for policy change."
There are those who think we should not be spreading this kind of information around as it might give terrorists ideas. Homeland Security obviously thinks otherwise. My own opinion is that some terrorists are plenty smart and don’t need any help and in fact they themselves don’t want to have the material spread around. This, lest more amateur terrorists jump the gun, and do just enough damage to cause the nations of the world to beef up their woefully inadequate defenses with billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars. Folks are sounding the alarm around the world has can be seen by this Polish Pyro-Terrorism Article. In this Blog Article Fire is One of the Soldiers of Allah the author talks about the ember bombs being dropped from kites recently and what the terrorists are saying about using fire as a weapon of mass destruction. This person who was recently in California visiting relatives, talks about how California is now in the sights of the terrorists because of recent mega-fires there.
The funds now being distributed to mitigate the huge fuel loads in our forests and the parts of cities built in the wildland urban interface are just too little too late as in the 2018 California wildfire billion dollar bill to be spent on wildfire mitigation over 5 years. I don’t see any kind of game changer distribution of funds until we get attacked. The best case scenario will be a blundered operation that scares the hell out of everybody and worst the incineration of one or more cities in less than an hour leaving no chance for the population to escape.
What the public does not understand is that the whole city does not have to be hit by the head fire. Even if the fire goes out at the edge of the city the embers will blanket the whole city, igniting homes and buildings that are not fire hardened and have defensible space around them. Any building that has a flammable roof with straw or leaves in the gutters, or flammable siding with flammable vegetation alongside or in the yard, has a very good chance of burning to the ground taking nearby homes even fire hardened homes with it. It is a fact that embers can even be sucked into ventilation shafts to ignite and burn the home or other building from the inside out. Fire adapted trees burn out the competition for living space and when planted near a home the home is the competition!
Note - Copy and Distribute Freely - On our Facebook group Association of Fire Management Activists we post on a regular basis articles relating to fire for reading, discussion and sharing. Folks are welcome to join and keep up with the fire news. On this website you can also read this, my fire book, for free starting with the introduction at the top and then to the MORE button for the rest of the chapters and other recent articles. Welcome on board.