[ad_1]
A 30-year-old woman from Palo Alto accused of starting the California wildfire that destroyed more than 40 homes and some 90 other structures in Shasta County pleaded not guilty on Friday morning.
Alexandra Souverneva, a California Institute of Technology graduate who identifies herself as a shaman on her LinkedIn page, said she accidentally started the Fawn Fire on Wednesday while she was boiling bear urine to drink, according to one story filed by the police of Cal Fire. .
A lawyer in a court appearance on Friday said Souverneva had made statements to law enforcement suggesting a potential mental health crisis “or something to do with drug addiction,” the Redding Record Searchlight reported.
Judge Adam Ryan increased the bail from $ 100,000 to $ 150,000 for the arson charge on forest land, noting that the damage caused by the fire was increasing. An additional $ 25,000 was added for arson during California’s current state of emergency over wildfire danger, the local newspaper reported.
Souverneva is believed to have started further fires in Shasta County and across the state, District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett said at a press conference on Friday.
The fawn fire erupted on Wednesday, September 22, reached 3,500 acres in less than 24 hours, and exploded on the afternoon of Thursday, September 23, in windy conditions, threatening the Mountain Gate neighborhood. The blaze was 8,559 acres Sunday night with 45% containment, Cal Fire said in its most recent incident report.
Cal Fire said the fire was first reported at 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday in a secluded canyon on property adjacent to the JF Shea and Mountain Gate quarries.
Quarry workers said they saw an intruder “acting irrationally” before the fire broke out, Cal Fire said. Before losing sight of her, she “threw things along a dirt road made up of two small Co2 cartridges and one AA battery,” Cal Fire’s account said.
Cal Fire said Souverneva then came out of the brush near the fire line, approached the fire department and told them she was dehydrated and needed medical help. Souverneva reportedly had a working lighter in her pocket along with CO2 cartridges and a “pink and white item containing a green leafy substance that she admitted to smoking that day”. She told law enforcement in Cal Fire that she was hiking and “trying to get to Canada,” the Cal Fire story reported.
In an interview with Cal Fire and law enforcement, officers came to believe Souverneva was responsible for the blaze, officials said. She was incarcerated in Shasta County Jail.
Souverneva graduated from Palo Alto High School in 2009, reported Campanile, the school’s newspaper.
She then attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated in 2012 with degrees in chemistry and biology, the University of Pasadena confirmed.
Campanile said Souverneva tutored local chemistry students, and her LinkedIn page said she was working for AJ Tutoring in 2020.
AJ Tutoring client Hannah Ramrakhiani told Campanile that she and other students in the Palo Alto Unified School District worked with Souverneva during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“She’s so smart and such a good chemistry teacher, and she’s always been so kind and calm,” Ramrakhiani said.
Souverneva’s LinkedIn page also revealed that she is a yoga and scuba diving instructor and works in the biotech industry.
(SFGATE contacted several employers, including AJ Tutoring, listed on Souverneva’s LinkedIn page, but did not receive an immediate response.)
Firefighters took over the Fawn Fire on Sunday, which displaced thousands of people.
Lighter winds and cooler temperatures slowed the Fawn Fire as it made its way to the shores of California’s largest man-made lake and away from populated areas north of the town of Redding, allowing teams to increase leverage. containment at 35%, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement.
The fire threatened 9,000 buildings at one point, but the number fell to 2,340 on Sunday.
Light rain was forecast for Monday. Firefighters said crews would begin to take advantage of the quieter weather to conduct back-burns near the lake to extend control lines, Record Searchlight reported.
“We’re going to hold it. It’s going to be done this week, ”Bret Gouvea, head of CalFire’s Shasta-Trinity unit, said at a community meeting on Saturday night.
Initial assessments revealed 131 homes and other buildings had burned down, CalFire said. That number was subject to change as teams scoured street by street to watch for destruction.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link