A large grassfire was started last night, October 29-30, around midnight west of the main Oceti Sakowin Camp on a nearby hill. The startled Water Protectors were calmed by forest firefighters in the camp who quickly assessed that the fire would burn itself out. Video shows the fire was deliberately set as a long-range camera shows numerous dollops of new fires being started on the outskirts of the fire.
Screenshot of Myron Dewey's Facebook video of an arson grassfire started near the Oceti Sakowin Camp in North Dakota
I cannot embed Facebook video, so here is my transcript from Myron Dewey’s video:
Hello Relatives, the fire at the camp is [...] gonna burn its self out. I'll give a little overview of the fire. I've been a fire fighter for seven years, back in the day, three of those years on a Hotshot crew and we did a lot of night burns like this. Whoever's burning on top, they're using drip torch to try to get the fire going. We can see it from the ground there. It's not the jurisdiction and it's not any of our goal to have anybody be accused of arson. And so the camp stayed off. It's not BIA's jurisdiction so the BIA stayed away and Morton County [later corrected in another video to Tribal police, not Morton County] blocked the road so they can't cross the road. But we did, we're in pursuit of unmarked vehicles that were going around, DAPL security were spotted on the far east side. But no one was able to get a visual. ( Camera turns to show highway BIA checkpoint after fire was set after midnight.) We had a group talk to the community that was there and let 'em know that wind is barely blowing and the RH [relative humidity] level is high and the fire will burn itself out. So the good news is that DAPL security can't hide up on the mountain anymore. The bad news is they haven't caught the guys, that's where DAPL sits up on top with their ATVs and their vehicles. We can see them from [camp? video broke up] Everyone is good to go and they’re going to sleep and gotta a long day tomorrow getting the camp secured and ready for winter. So everyone is okay, Relatives.
BACKGROUND: My detailed news timeline on Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) vs. the water protectors can be read here if you need it.
We are all stewards of the earth
