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Woman Whose Firm Was Linked to the Exploding Pagers Is under Hungarian Protection, Her Mother Says

This photo shows a house where a Hungarian company that allegedly manufactured pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, is headquartered in Budapest Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP)
This photo shows a house where a Hungarian company that allegedly manufactured pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, is headquartered in Budapest Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP)
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Woman Whose Firm Was Linked to the Exploding Pagers Is under Hungarian Protection, Her Mother Says

This photo shows a house where a Hungarian company that allegedly manufactured pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, is headquartered in Budapest Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP)
This photo shows a house where a Hungarian company that allegedly manufactured pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, is headquartered in Budapest Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP)

The woman whose company was linked to thousands of pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria this week is under the protection of the Hungarian secret services, her mother told The Associated Press on Friday.

Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono has not appeared publicly since the deadly simultaneous attack that targeted Hezbollah on Tuesday and that has been widely blamed on Israel. She is listed as the CEO of Budapest-based BAC Consulting, which the Taiwanese trademark holder of the pagers said was responsible for the manufacture of the devices.

Her mother, Beatrix Bársony-Arcidiacono, told the AP that her daughter had received unspecified threats and “is currently in a safe place protected by the Hungarian secret services."

The “Hungarian secret services advised her not to talk to media,” she said by phone from Sicily.

Hungary's national security authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the AP could not independently verify the claim.

Two days of attacks this week, first targeting pagers and then walkie-talkies, have killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 3,000, including civilians. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono's company came under scrutiny after Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese firm, said it had authorized BAC Consulting to use its name on the pagers that were used in the first attack, but that the Hungarian company was responsible for manufacturing and design.

On Wednesday, a Hungarian government spokesman said the pagers delivered to Hezbollah were never in Hungary, and that BAC Consulting merely acted as an intermediary.

Beatrix Bársony-Arcidiacono, who also uses the name Beatrice, echoed that.

“She is not involved in any way, she was just a broker. The items did not pass through Budapest. ... They were not produced in Hungary,” she said.

BAC Consulting shares the ground floor of a modest building in Budapest with numerous other enterprises, but has no physical offices and uses the property in Hungary's capital — like the other companies based there — only as an official address, according to a woman who emerged from the building earlier this week and refused to be named.

The company's website said it specialized in “environment, development, and international affairs.” The corporate registry listed 118 official functions including sugar and oil production, retail jewelry sales and natural gas extraction.

The company brought in $725,000 in revenue in 2022 and $593,000 in 2023, according to the company registry. Last year, the company spent nearly $324,000, or around 55% of its revenue, on “equipment.”

The company's website has been unavailable since Wednesday.

Beatrix Bársony-Arcidiacono said her daughter was born in Sicily and studied at the University of Catania there before pursuing a Ph.D. in London. She worked in Paris and Vienna before moving to Budapest in October 2016 to care for her elderly grandmother.

In May 2022, she incorporated the company at the heart of the mystery of the pagers.

On social media, the younger Bársony-Arcidiacono describes herself as a strategic adviser and business developer who has worked for major international organizations as well as for venture capital firms. Her company's website said she has a doctorate in physics.

The 49-year-old received the degree from University College London, where she was enrolled in the early to mid-2000s, according to her LinkedIn page. There, she worked with Ákos Kövér, a Hungarian physicist and now-retired professor, who confirmed her enrollment.

Kövér said in an email to the AP: “At the time, we also published some joint articles. I am not aware of her other activities."

She interned at the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2008 and 2009, as confirmed by the agency, and once co-authored a paper for a UNESCO conference discussing the management of underground water.

On her social media accounts, she posted pictures from France, the UKand other places, mostly selfies or photos of places she was said she was visiting. Few friends interacted with her messages, some inviting her to come visit or commenting on her appearance.

She speaks English, French, Italian and Hungarian, according to her social media, where she has occasionally made comments criticizing Ukraine or in support of children in Gaza.

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World

Fire Tornadoes are a Risk Under California's Extreme Wildfire Conditions

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
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Fire Tornadoes are a Risk Under California's Extreme Wildfire Conditions

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP

As if they aren’t already facing enough, firefighters in California also could encounter fire tornadoes — a rare but dangerous phenomenon in which wildfires create their own weather.

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” in which any new fire could explode in size. The advisory, which runs into Wednesday, didn’t mention tornadoes, but meteorologist Todd Hall said they're possible given the extreme conditions.

 

A look at fire tornadoes according to The AP.

What is a fire tornado? Fire whirl, fire devil, fire tornado or even firenado — scientists, firefighters and regular folks use multiple terms to describe similar phenomena, and they don’t always agree on what’s what. Some say fire whirls are formed only by heat, while fire tornadoes involve clouds generated by the fire itself.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s glossary of wildland fire terms doesn’t include an entry for fire tornado, but it defines a fire whirl as a “spinning vortex column of ascending hot air and gases rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris and flame,” and says large whirls “have the intensity of a small tornado.”

Wildfires with turbulent plumes can produce clouds that in turn can produce lightning or a vortex of ash, smoke and flames, said Leila Carvalho, professor of meteorology and climatology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“There is a rotation caused by very strong wind shear and a very hot, localized low-pressure system,” she said.

What is a fire tornado capable of? Fire tornadoes can make fires stronger by sucking up air, Carvalho said. “It creates a tornado track, and wherever this goes, the destruction is like any other tornado.”

In 2018, a fire tornado the size of three football fields killed a firefighter as it exploded in what already was a vast and devastating wildfire near near Redding, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) north of San Francisco in northern California. Scientists later described an ice-capped cloud that reached 7 miles (11 km) into the air and caused winds up to 143 mph (230 kph).

Research also suggests fire tornadoes can carry airborne embers, also called firebrands, over long distances, said James Urban, an assistant professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They also can change the fire’s behavior, he said.

“That’s also something that is dangerous and scary for first responders, or really anyone,” he said. “It can change and maybe go in a different direction.”

The interaction between wind, the fire plume and topography determines whether a tornado will develop, he said. For example, sometimes a certain topography will restrict airflow in such a way that a spiral pattern develops.

Can you make one in a lab? Together with San José State University, Worcester Polytech is part of a Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center. In the lab in Worcester, researchers have created small fire tornadoes by putting up walls around a fire or arranging a bunch of little fires that together restrict airflow. But that’s on a much smaller scale than what’s happening with the wildfires.

“We’ve got the biggest fire lab in the US for a university, but we cannot get something the size of what’s been reported at these fires,” he said. “You can’t really bottle that and put it in a lab.”