The Government Accountability Office has found that a good portion of Arizona's wildfires were started by illegal aliens or their smugglers – 30 out of the 77 fires the watchdog agency examined.
Here are some excerpts from the AP story on the report:
Nearly 2,500 wildfires occurred in the Arizona border region from 2006 to 2010, but the GAO studied only those that were human-caused, burned more than 1 acre and those for which investigative reports were available. Of the 422 wildfires that topped an acre, federal fire investigators probed 77, or 18 percent.
The GAO report doesn't cover wildfires in 2011 because investigative reports were not yet complete when the GAO was conducting its study.
The GAO found that 30 of the probed wildfires were linked to illegal border crossers primarily in southeastern Arizona based on what was written in investigative reports. Fifteen were thought to be a signal for help, provide warmth or cook food. An investigative report on the 2009 Bear fire backed up that suspicion by noting the discovery of discarded bottles and food wrappers with Spanish language labels near a campfire. It also noted that the area is frequented by illegal border crossers and is adjacent to a heavily used smuggling trail, the GAO report said. . . .
The GAO also looked at fire incident reports for 1,123 wildfires in the area over the five-year period and found that 57 of them include firefighters' suspicions that illegal border crossers were to blame for ignition. Those reports are not formal investigations into the fire's origin.
The consequences of wildfires linked to illegal immigration include the threat to human life, millions of taxpayer dollars spent on firefighting, endangered, damaged, or destroyed American citizens' homes and private property, potential harm to firefighters and even to illegal aliens themselves, and the harm done to wildlife and America's natural resources.
There are many reasons to get illegal immigration under control. Man-made wildfires count as one of them.
Topics: Arizona