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)

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germany on Saturday was still in shock and struggling to understand the suspect behind the attack in the city of Magdeburg.

Identified by local media as 50-year-old Taleb A., a psychiatry and psychotherapy specialist, authorities said he has been living in Germany for two decades. He was arrested on site after plowing a black BMW into a Christmas market crowded with holiday shoppers Friday evening, killing at least five people and wounding about 200 others.

Prominent German terrorism expert Peter Neumann posted on X that he had yet to come across a suspect in an act of mass violence with that profile.

Taleb’s X account is filled with tweets and retweets focusing on anti-Islam themes and criticism of the religion while sharing congratulatory notes to Muslims who left the faith. He also described himself as a former Muslim.

He was critical of German authorities, saying they had failed to do enough to combat the “Islamism of Europe.”

He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Some described Taleb as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. Recently, he seemed focused on his theory that German authorities have been targeting Saudi asylum seekers.

Neumann, the terrorism expert, wrote: “After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you anymore. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists — that really wasn’t on my radar."

A person stands by flowers and candles placed outside St. John's Church near a Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)