A man and woman from Oregon were arrested after the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said they attempted to enter the Palisades fire evacuation zone in a decommissioned fire engine, authorities said Sunday.
Dustin Nehl, 31, and his wife, Jennifer Nehl, 44, were taken into custody on suspicion of impersonating firefighters and unauthorized entry of an evacuation zone, both misdemeanors, according to the announcement.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office told HuffPost that the Nehls have been charged and are expected to be arraigned on Wednesday.
According to the announcement, L.A. police were driving through the Palisades fire area on Saturday when they noticed an illegitimate fire truck and found the Nehls inside. Authorities said the two were attempting to enter the evacuation zone.
The couple were wearing firefighting gear when the officer approached them, according to the announcement. The two allegedly said they were working with the Roaring River Fire Department in Oregon.
However, the Roaring River Fire Department is not a legitimate agency, authorities said in the announcement, and the fire engine that two were inside had been purchased at an auction.
Authorities told the Los Angeles Times that the truck had been used by a Northern California fire department but was decommissioned about 30 years ago.
At the time they were stopped by police, the Nehls both admitted to having been in the evacuation zone the day before, and the two were detained shortly afterward, according to the sheriff’s department.
Authorities noted that Dustin Nehl has a criminal history in Oregon of criminal mischief and arson. He was sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison after a series of vandalism incidents in Woodburn, Oregon, between 2013 and 2016, the Woodburn Independent reported.
Plea documents said that Dustin Nehl caused an explosion on a local property and confessed to possessing an “incendiary device,” according to the Independent.
No information was immediately available about why the Nehls were allegedly attempting to enter the evacuation zone. On social media, Jennifer Nehl describes herself as an “Atmospheric & Fire sciences educator” and weather ambassador for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A spokesperson for NOAA told HuffPost that Jennifer Nehl is not employed by the agency, but that she “attended our Skywarn class to learn about weather safety.” However, the program did not offer any type of certification.
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Nehl “was a representative of her former employer as a Weather-Ready Nation ambassador, but she is no longer in that role,” the spokesperson said. (Nehl was featured in a 2023 NOAA blog post that identified her by her maiden name, Hastings, and described her as a “science teacher who works at an accredited juvenile detention education program in the Portland, Oregon, area.”)