BREAKING: Major Warehouse fire in Salt Lake City

[Sean Reynolds]

Breaking news here in Salt Lake.

I'll update ya when our local news sites start giving stories.


http://www.earthliberationfront.com/

[NMDemDist2]

1. what is ELF?? eom

[Sean Reynolds]

3. Earth Liberation Front

Sorry, I'll edit my post.

[Ediacara]

4. Earth Liberation Front?

I think anyway..... a pretty radical environmental group that has been known to claim responsibility for arsons in the past.

[Cush]

2. what is ELF?

[htuttle]

5. ?

[not systems]

6. What makes you say that?

Talking out your a** or do you have some reason to say what you did?

[Sean Reynolds]

8. Why don't you re-read my post...

Before you come off sounding like a bitch.

I said MAY BE ELF.....so says local news.

:eyes:

[not systems]

10. Ok, So said local news.

I thought you were embellishing with the ELF statement.

It was not obvious.

So do they have any reason for what they said?

A warehouse full of what?

[Sean Reynolds]

15. Paper products.....

They say it could be ELF because they've hit two other locations in the past few weeks here in the SLC region.

Of course I'd not be surprised it weren't connected to ELF at all.

[rooboy]

18. I'd imagine it's a warehouse full of earth..

that's why the Earth Liberation Front is trying to liberate it. :evilgrin:

[maddezmom]

7. link: Lumber fire tied to Earth Liberation Front

SALT LAKE CITY - A radical environmental group claimed responsibility Thursday for a suburban lumberyard fire that caused $1.5 million in damage.


The Earth Liberation Front issued a statement on its Web site Thursday saying that the group considers graffiti left at the scene and an earlier fax to a Salt Lake City radio station as “a legitimate claim of responsibility.”

The ELF, a loosely organized group of militant environmentalists, generally communicates with the media through e-mail. The Associated Press received Thursday’s statement via e-mail, the contents of which were later posted on the Web site.

FBI spokesman Bob Wright said the group’s reliance on e-mail and fax statements contribute to the difficulty of making an arrest. The agency has not ruled out that the statement and the earlier fax could be “red herrings,” Wright said.

~snip~

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5235170/

edited to include part of the article

[KittyWampus]

9. Hard To Believe They Know It's ELF Already

link doesn't work, by the way.

[Sean Reynolds]

11. Well they're only saying it because ELF has targeted two other sites......

In the past month.

All speculation of course, but thats how news works. :)

[maddezmom]

12. works for me, but here is another

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/06/17/build/nation/38-elf-lumberyeardfire.inc

[KittyWampus]

17. Thnx, Maddeszmom. 2nd Link Worked On My Ancient Netscape

Earth Liberation Front claims responsibility for lumberyard fire

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A radical environmental group claimed responsibility Thursday for a suburban lumberyard fire that caused $1.5 million in damage and which the FBI is investigating as possible ecoterrorism. The Earth Liberation Front issued a statement Thursday that they consider graffiti left at the West Jordan fire scene and an earlier fax to a Salt Lake City radio station as "a legitimate claim of responsibility." The ELF, a loosely organized group of militant environmentalists, generally communicates with the media through e-mail. The Associated Press received Thursday's statement via e-mail, the contents of which were later posted on the group's Web site.

A spokesman for the FBI, Bob Wright, said the ELF's reliance on e-mail and fax statements contribute to the "difficulty in identifying who is behind the communication and who is behind the criminal acts." The agency has not ruled out that the statement and the earlier fax could be "red herrings," Wright said. "Obviously, someone can take responsibility for someone else's actions if there's no liability for them," he said.

A group calling itself "E.L.F" sent a fax to a local radio station Tuesday claiming responsibility for the fire at Stock Building Supply that destroyed a storage building but caused no injuries. It was unclear whether that fax was legitimate. The fax said the lumberyard was targeted because it had ignored warnings to repair forklifts that emitted more pollution tha n diesel engines. The initials "ELF" were spray-painted on a building at the lumberyard and a truck. Thursday's statement said the fire was the fourth action by the ELF since the beginning of this year. The ELF, it read, is "an international underground organization that uses direct action in the form of economic sabotage to stop the destruction of the natural environment."

ELF has been linked to arson and vandalism at agriculture research labs, logging operations, sport utility vehicle dealerships and construction sites. The costliest incident to date involved a $50 million fire last year that destroyed a five-story apartment complex under construction in San Diego. The FBI says the group has caused more than $100 million in damage since 1996. Its sister organization, the Animal Liberation Front, is considered by the FBI as its top domestic terrorist concern. The lumberyard fire came on the heels of a national warning last week from the FBI to law-enforcement agencies that the ELF was planning possible acts of ecoterrorism in several cities in support of an environmental activist jailed in Oregon for arson. The Salt Lake City area was not listed in the warning. The FBI declined to comment on whether they were questioning Jeff Luers, who is serving a 22-year sentence in Oregon for a 2000 arson at an auto dealership and an attempted arson at an oil company. But Wright said the agency was seeking an insider who could shed light on the Utah blaze. The FBI has also warned four businesses in the Salt Lake area that they were listed in the fax as future targets, including a sport utility dealership, two other lumberyards and Kennecott Utah Copper, which operates a large mine southwest of the city.

[not systems]

13. I would get the insurance fraud investigators to the scene.

[Earth_First]

14. EF!

[Ediacara]

16. From KUTV - CBS 2

About 4 sentences, nothing on motive, perpetrators, items stored, injuries etc. None of the other TV stations in SLC appear to have anything yet.

http://kutv.com/utah/UT--UrbanFire-en/resources_news_html

[GeronimoSkull]

19. I doubt it's ELF

Elves usually do their work late at night.

[Sean Reynolds]

20. Or in trees......

[Earth_First]

21. So how would you go about dealing with anti-environmentalism?

Lobby Washington some more? Care2 letters, faxes and petitions?

Seems to be working wonders: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53557-2004Jul15.html

[KittyWampus]

23. Certainly NOT By Using Arson & Potentially Slaughtering Innocent People

destruction of property is destruction of property.

[murielm99]

27. Send those elves over here.

My house could use a good cleaning while I sleep.

[Hamlette]

22. damn, its HUGE

can anyone else see it? Looks like end of the world.

[Sean Reynolds]

24. I thought I saw some horses flying out of it.....

Scurrry.

[medeak]

25. It IS huge

get a couple of Utah stations here.

ELF was nuts in Scottsdale AZ burning every million dollar plus home being built.

[shraby]

26. If the government can't protect

us from home-grown ecoterrorists, how can they protect us from foreign ones?

[montana_hazeleyes]

28. When I first scanned the breaking news stories

I at first read this to say "BREAKING: Major Whorehouse fire in Salt Lake City" Oh dear god.

[liberalmuse]

29. I see smoke from my back porch...

It was a large cloud. I thought it was that field fire. Damn! My eyes are starting to feel it. I'll have allergies for days again, not to mention what the elderly and asthmatic will be going through.

BTW, I was skeptical too when the Tribune came out and said the lumberyard fire was from an environmental group so quickly, so I waited before passing judgement. Sure enough... These people from ELF are causing much worse environmental damage than they claim to be stopping, and they're severely damaging the environmental cause. Extremists SUCK.

[medeak]

31. Would ELF do it with people inside?

heard interviews there were 200 employees inside...shift change.

Lucky to get out. And fire station directly across the street. How the heck did it get out of control so fast?

You're correct about ELF doing more damage to environment. We had PETA come to our little burg and release baby chukars the dentention school had the boys raising. They would be released when adult and able to be hunted...however anyone who hunts chukar knows that's a joke as they hide in rocks.

Anway..the PETA people let the babies loose who weren't able to feed themselves and not only that...interstate highway was next to school and they all ran out on highway and run over. The carnage was horrible.

[Syncronaut Seven]

32. Not ELF's M.O.

People inside. My guess? Insurance fraud, Poor equipment maintenance, disgruntled employee. Shit tends to happen during shift changes.

I was onsite at a lumber mill in La. a few years ago when It blew sky high, right in the middle of a shift change.

Some monkey hit the alarm silence on the spark suppression system 83 times in 5 hours. It was on the freakin system log.

In this instance a fax from ELF operatives could have just as easily been from FBI, or higher.

Occams razor.

[DeadHead67]

30. Maybe that's where the LAST set of Bush's military records is . . . . .