William Janklow: “I am here because it is incredibly important that the people of America understand what we are doing to ourselves…”

“I am here because it is incredibly important that the people of America understand what we are doing to ourselves, because that is what it is. We are on a self-destructive tour that is really bringing about the death of human beings. All we need is to have one of these fires in the West, like we have had in the last several years. Now, I live in the State of South Dakota. The State of South Dakota in the year 2000, we had a couple of forest fires that burned 132,000 acres of the 1.2 million acres in the Black Hills National Forest. That is approximately 10 percent of the entire Black Hills burned down in 2000. We had 600 soldiers and airmen on Active Duty. We had all of the South Dakota Highway Patrol there. We had 150 local fire departments, all but one of them volunteer fire departments, from all over South Dakota. In addition to that, I called the Governor of Minnesota, the Governor of Wisconsin, the Governors of Nebraska, Montana, and Wyoming. I told them this was beyond our capability. I asked them for help, and they sent their fire trucks. The inmates in our State prison system put in 43,632 hours fighting these fires.”