A raging forest fire that destroyed 29,000 acres of beautiful landscape, took six weeks to contain, and cost the state of California over $61 million was all started by an illegal alien from a sanctuary city.
Angel Gilberto Garcia-Avalos pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to 13 months in prison for starting the fire in the Sequoia National Forest on August 16, now famously known as the Cedar Fire.
A citizen of Michoacán, Mexico, Garcia-Avalos had previously been deported five times in just the past four years and already had a criminal record in the U.S., including driving without a license, attempted burglary and felony weapons charges.
At the time he caused the forest fire, he had just been released from the Kern County Jail, and would have been deported again if not for the California town’s new sanctuary city law, which prohibited the sheriff from notifying federal agents that an illegal criminal was being turned loose on the streets.
The day the fire started, Garcia-Avalos, who had his 4-year-old son with him, pulled off the road in his Nissan SUV and got the vehicle stuck. The heat from the SUV’s muffler and catalytic converter lit the dry grass on fire underneath the vehicle. Garcia-Avalos then took off on foot with his son, and when area ranchers saw him walking and stopped to question him, he lied, saying this car had been stolen, and declined their offer for a ride.
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