North Dakota wildfire victim was about to return home to South Africa for the birth of his daughter

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A South African man who died due to a North Dakota wildfire over the weekend was planning to return to his wife within weeks in time for the birth of their first child.

Nicolaas van Eeden, 26, died Saturday due to smoke inhalation after he was driving home to Tioga when the smoke became too much, based on a state trooper's report, his wife, Anke, told The Associated Press. It's unclear exactly what happened, but the trooper found him alive and able to walk. However, he died soon after arriving in Williston by ambulance, she said.

Van Eeden was one of two people who died due to the weekend wildfires, blazes in scattered areas of western North Dakota that injured several other people and led to evacuations of more than 100 others.

“He was just an amazing person,” Anke van Eeden said of her husband. “And he absolutely adored everyone around him and cared for everyone, and I think the only thing keeping him going is the fact that he was so excited to meet his little girl.”

The couple’s daughter is due in November. Anke learned of Nicolaas’s death soon after her baby shower. They were married in February and had been together for three and a half years. They met through mutual friends.

They came to North Dakota together in late April. Nicolaas was doing general farm work on a Tioga-area ranch under an agricultural worker visa program “to just give us a financial boost so we can start our lives,” Anke said.

He was set to come home in three weeks for their baby’s birth. Anke, 31, quit her job earlier this year to go to North Dakota with Nicolaas, who was the family's provider. She returned to George, South Africa, in early August.

The couple's last conversation was a routine phone call letting her know he was driving home, she said.

Messages, prayers and condolences from North Dakota have reached her on the other side of the world, she said — a response that has been “more than I ever thought possible." The Bank of Tioga has an account for donations for the van Eeden family.

Nicolaas was an amazing worker who had a lot of heart for everything he did, said Brittany Wolla, whose family he worked for on their farm and ranch for two summers, doing everything from driving combine harvester to spreading manure to working cows, Wolla said.

“Anything we asked of him, he would do it, and if he didn't know how to do it, he was very willing to learn” — even watching YouTube videos if he couldn't figure out a task by himself, she said.

North Dakota's snow and cold weather were a shock for him — and so was driving on the right side of the road — but Wolla said her family has never had farm hands with an outstanding work ethic as the South Africans they have employed, who became part of their family.

The van Eeden family is holding a ceremony for Nicolaas in the coming days. His ashes won't arrive home until after his daughter is born.

Authorities on Tuesday confirmed the death of a second person, 47-year-old Edgar Coppersmith, of Tioga, in connection with the Williams County fires.

Detective Dan Ward said Coppersmith was taken to Denver due to his injuries. He died there, but Ward said he did not know when or how he was injured.

Coppersmith and van Eeden were injured in separate incidents, Ward said. Six other people were injured as a result of the fires in the county.

The fires were some of six major wildfires from over the weekend in scattered areas of western North Dakota, where dry conditions and wind gusts up to nearly 80 mph (129 kph)spurred the flames. Officials believe downed power lines caused at least some of the fires.

Firefighters on Tuesday had a better handle on two other large wildfires burning in western North Dakota.

As of 3:52 p.m. Tuesday, the 28,434-acre (11,507-hectare) Elkhorn Fire near Grassy Butte was 50% contained, and the 11,746-acre (4,753-hectare) Bear Den Fire near Mandaree was 30% contained, according to the state Department of Emergency Services.

No injuries have been reported in connection with the two fires. Two homes and numerous outbuildings have been lost. Both fires are burning in rugged Badlands terrain in North Dakota’s oilfield.

The North Dakota Forest Service logged 33 reported fires over the weekend, amounting to 49,180 acres (19,902 hectares).

That figure does not include the large Ray-, Tioga- and Alamo-area fires that merged into one. That fire’s burn perimeter is estimated at 88,934 acres (35,990 hectares), but there could be patches within that area that didn’t burn, a department spokesperson said. That fire is 99% contained. Flareups are still an issue.

More than 100 people evacuated from their homes in the Arnegard and Keene areas Saturday due to fires.

Livestock losses from the fires were not immediately clear. Hundreds of power poles were damaged. Segments of two highways temporarily closed.

Officials expect the fire danger conditions to continue this fall.

In this photo provided by the U.S. Army National Guard, North Dakota National Guard soldiers and airmen work with the Department of Emergency Services to build a handline and conduct a controlled burn to prevent the further spread of a wildfire in Mandaree, N.D., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (Staff Sgt. Samuel J. Kroll/U.S. Army National Guard via AP)

In this photo provided by the U.S. Army National Guard, North Dakota National Guard soldiers and airmen work with the Department of Emergency Services to build a handline and conduct a controlled burn to prevent the further spread of a wildfire in Mandaree, N.D., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (Staff Sgt. Samuel J. Kroll/U.S. Army National Guard via AP)

In this photo provided by the U.S. Army National Guard, North Dakota National Guard soldiers and airmen work with the Department of Emergency Services to build a handline and conduct a controlled burn to prevent the further spread of a wildfire in Mandaree, N.D., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (Staff Sgt. Samuel J. Kroll/U.S. Army National Guard via AP)

This undated photo provided by Anke van Eeden shows Nicolaas and Anke van Eeden in a tractor on a ranch near Tioga, N.D. Nicolaas van Eeden, 26, died Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in connection with a large wildfire burning near Ray, N.D. (Anke van Eeden via AP)

This 2024 image provided by Anke van Eeden shows Nicolaas and Anke van Eeden during their first week in America. (Anke van Eeden via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has had as many as seven private phone calls with Vladimir Putin since leaving office and secretly sent the Russian president COVID-19 test machines during the height of the pandemic, Bob Woodward reported in his new book, “War."

The revelations were made in the famed Watergate reporter's latest book, which also details President Joe Biden's frustrations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman 's assortment of burner phones. The Associated Press obtained an early copy of the book, which is due out next week.

Trump denied the reporting in an interview with ABC News' Jonathan Karl. “He’s a storyteller. A bad one. And he’s lost his marbles,” Trump said of Woodward.

Trump had previously spoken to Woodward for the journalist's 2021 book, “Rage.” Trump later sued over it, claiming Woodward never had permission to publicly release recordings of their interviews for the book. The publisher and Woodward denied his allegations.

Here is more from the new book:

Woodward reports that Trump asked an aide to leave his office at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, so that the former president could have a private call with Putin in early 2024. The aide, whom Woodward doesn’t name, said there have been multiple calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left office, perhaps as many as seven, according to the book, though it does not detail what they discussed.

Trump senior adviser and longtime aide Jason Miller told Woodward that he had not heard Trump was having calls with Putin and said, “I'd push back on that.” But Miller also said, according to the book, “I’m sure they’d know how to get in touch with each other."

Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said none of the stories in Woodward’s books are true. In a statement on Tuesday, he called them “the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

Trump's relationship with Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he memorably called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said.

U.S. intelligence agencies later determined that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump, though an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller found no conspiracy between the Trump team and Russia. In 2018, Trump publicly questioned that finding following an in-person meeting with Putin in Helsinki.

In recent years, Trump has criticized U.S. support for Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion. He has said Ukraine should have made concessions to Putin before Russia invaded in 2022. He also previously touted his good relationship with Putin and called the Russian leader “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.

Woodward reports that Trump sent Putin COVID-19 test machines for his personal use as the virus began spreading in 2020.

Putin told Trump not to tell anyone because people would be mad at Trump over it, but Trump said he didn’t care if anyone knew, according to the book. Trump ended up agreeing not to tell anyone.

The book doesn’t specify when the machines were sent but describes it as being when the virus spread rapidly through Russia. It was previously reported by The Associated Press and other agencies that Trump’s administration in May 2020 sent ventilators and other equipment to several countries, including Russia.

Vice President Kamala Harris, in an interview Tuesday with radio host Howard Stern, accused Trump of giving the machines to a “murderous dictator” at a time when “everyone was scrambling" to get tests.

“This person who wants to be president again, who secretly is helping out an an adversary while the American people are dying by the hundreds every day," said Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate.

The book also details Biden’s complicated relationship with Netanyahu as well as private moments when the president has been fed up with him over the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden’s “frustrations and distrust” of Netanyahu “erupted” this past spring, Woodward writes. The president privately unleashed a profanity-laden tirade, calling him a “son of a bitch” and a “bad f——— guy," according to the book. Biden said he felt, in Woodward’s accounting, that Netanyahu “had been lying to him regularly.” With Netanyahu “continuing to say he was going to kill every last member of Hamas.” Woodward wrote, “Biden had told him that was impossible, threatening both privately and publicly to withhold offensive U.S. weapons shipment.”

Biden and Netanyahu have long been acquainted, although their relationship has not been known to be close or overly friendly. Last week, Biden said he didn’t know whether the Israeli leader was holding up a Mideast peace deal in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Asked about the book's reporting, White House spokesperson Emilie Simons told reporters Tuesday that “The commitment that we have to the state of Israel is ironclad.”

Simons, when pressed on the details, said she wouldn't comment on every anecdote that may come out in reporting. She added of Biden and Netanyahu: “They have a long-term relationship. They have a very honest and direct relationship, and I don’t have a comment on those specific anecdotes.”

The book details Biden’s criticism late last year of President Barack Obama’s handling of Putin’s earlier invasion of Ukraine, when Russia seized Crimea and a section of the Donbas in 2014, at a time when Biden was serving as the Democrat’s vice president.

“They f----- up in 2014,” Woodward wrote that Biden said to a close friend in December, blaming the lack of action for Putin’s actions in Ukraine. “Barack never took Putin seriously.”

Biden was angry while speaking to the friend and said they “never should have let Putin just walk in there” in 2014 and that the U.S. “did nothing.”

Woodward reports Biden was privately furious with Attorney General Merrick Garland for appointing a special counsel to investigate Biden’s son Hunter in a tax-and-gun prosecution.

“Should never have picked Garland,” Biden told an associate, according to Woodward. The journalist did not name the associate.

Hunter Biden was convicted in June on federal gun charges and faces sentencing in federal court in Delaware in December. He pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in California and is also set to be sentenced in that case in December.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

One of Trump’s longest-term allies, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, blamed Trump’s ongoing false claims that the 2020 election was rigged to a cult of personality in which the former president’s ensconcement at Mar-a-Lago and circle of aides and advisers “constantly feed this narrative,” according to the book.

The weekend after Russia invaded Ukraine, Graham was with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which the senator characterized as “a little bit like going to North Korea.” Graham added that “everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in.”

On politics, Woodward wrote that Graham’s counsel was part of what persuaded Trump to run again for the presidency.

In March, during one of his many visits to the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Graham told Woodward that he had been meeting with the Saudi crown prince when Graham suggested they call Trump. From “a bag containing about 50 burner phones,” Prince Mohammed “pulled out one labeled ‘TRUMP 45.’” On another trip, Woodward wrote, the Saudi leader retrieved another burner phone, "this time labeled JAKE SULLIVAN ” when the men called Biden’s national security adviser.

Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Hillel Italie in New York, Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington and Aamer Madhani aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.

FILE - In this April 29, 2017, file photo journalist Bob Woodward sits at the head table during the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an extended meeting during the summit of the heads of state of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool Photo via AP)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an event marking one year since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)