Quote:
Originally Posted by mpholland
The Two locals who went to jail were tried for arson as they did a backburn to control fires that were started by lightning to try to save their own private grazing land. It worked, and they got the fires controlled and out, but in the process the burn that they started went onto BLM land and burned up some federal land.
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That's not all they did, Marc. They also poached and butchered several deer on a BLM game preserve and then started a brush fire to destroy the evidence. One of the kids who was instructed to set the fire got himself trapped by the blaze and damn near died. He saved himself by jumping in a creek and waiting for the fire to burn past him.
And, by the way, the backfires they lit were illegal - whether they spread to BLM land or not. For one thing, there was a burn ban in place while the forestry service fought a series of fires in the area but the Hammonds lit a couple of backfires anyway. And then they didn't bother to notify anyone that they had. This could have resulted in the deaths of firefighters who could have found themselves trapped between the wildfires they were fighting and the Hammonds' backfires.
As far as I'm concerned, the assholes got off too lightly.