> From CNN.com: FEDS CHARGE FORESTRY WORKER WITH STARTING FIRE > > Federal authorities Sunday arrested a longtime U.S. Forest Service employee > for allegedly starting the largest fire in Colorado's history. Prosecutors > said Terry Barton, a 38-year-old Colorado woman, burned in anger a letter > from her estranged husband, in violation of a ban on fires in the > tinder-dry Pike National Forest. She apparently thought the fire had been > extinguished and left it only to find later that it was spreading, they > said. Barton is charged with setting fire to timber in a national forest, > damaging federal property and making false statements to federal fire > investigators. She faces as many as 10 years in prison and as much as > $500,000 in fines. > > <http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/16/colorado.fires/index.html>
I hope she gets the maximum penalty. In fact the half mil fine is too low. I would never fight a house fire but I have fought forest fires and will do so again as a volunteer. I fought the largest ever in PA forest fire. A camp owner sparked the blaze, burning trash. He was fined the value of all the wood that was lost, millions of dollars. (A few years later he died in a car accident near the middle of the fire area. At first it was ruled a suicide, then it was found that he had cut himself and was trying to drive to the hospital and had passed out.) Another PA couple was charged with a Idaho fire a few years ago. There was a chain hanging from their mobile home that sparked it. Kevin T. Save the forests so we can clear cut 'em
