FOUR POLICE DEPARTMENTS in parts of Oregon ravaged by wildfires — propelled by high winds across parched land during hot, dry weather in a changing climate — are pleading with the public to stop calling 911 to pass on unfounded rumors that antifascist political activists have intentionally set the blazes.
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“Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires,” the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Roseburg, Oregon wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “THIS IS NOT TRUE! Unfortunately, people are spreading this rumor and it is causing problems.”
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The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office in southwestern Oregon was also forced to respond to the spread of rumors on Thursday. “One increasingly problematic issue related to the disastrous fires in Jackson County is the spreading of false information,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. “We are inundated with questions about things that are FAKE stories. One example is a story circulating that varies about what group is involved as to setting fires and arrests being made. THIS IS NOT TRUE!”
While the authorities in Jackson County have opened an arson investigation into the Almeda Fire, which has caused at least two deaths and destroyed hundreds of homes, Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara told The Oregonian, a Portland newspaper, that there was no evidence of any link to antifascist activists.
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Police officers in the badly hit city of Medford also had to take time away from responding to the crisis to debunk a hoax Facebook post, mocked up to look like it had come from their department, which claimed that they had arrested five arsonists “based on anonymous tips.”
“This is a made up graphic and story,” the department wrote on its real Facebook page next to an image of the fake one. “We did not arrest this person for arson, nor anyone affiliated with Antifa or ‘Proud Boys’ as we’ve heard throughout the day. Also, no confirmed gatherings of Antifa which has also been reported.”
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On Wednesday, police officers in Molalla, a city in Clackamas County which was evacuated on Thursday, asked residents who remained in town to report possible suspicious activity by thieves amid what the department called a spate of “rumors” about looters spreading on Facebook.
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“This is about possible looters, not antifa or setting of fires. There has been NO antifa in town as of this posting at 02:00 am. Please, folks, stay calm and use common sense.”
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As Christopher Miller and Jane Lytvynenko reported for Buzzfeed News, the paranoia in Molalla led some locals to wrongly identify Gabriel Trumbly, a Portland video journalist and his partner, Jennifer Paulsen, as arsonists while they were filming some of the fires there on Wednesday.
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Three freelance journalists based in Portland — Justin Yau, Sergio Olmos and Alissa Azar – reported on Twitter on Thursday that they were threatened while reporting on the fires at one location in Molalla by armed men on the lookout for antifascist arsonists.
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One prominent Trump supporter who spread the false information about arrests in Douglas County and has refused to retract it is Paul Romero, who finished second in the Oregon Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in May, with more than 100,000 votes.
The Intercept
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