Two men indicted for starting Wallow Fire

[chumley]

The Arizona Republic
by JJ Hensley - Aug. 24, 2011 11:52 AM
Two men face federal charges of leaving an unattended campfire that sparked the massive Wallow Fire this summer, charring more than 538,000 acres in northeastern Arizona, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.

Cousins Caleb Joshua Malboeuf and David Wayne Malboeuf built a campfire in late May and left it unattended, which helped spark the blaze, authorities said.

Investigators determined that on May 29, the men were camping near the Bear Wallow Trailhead, about 2 miles from where the fire began.

An investigator issued an alert for personnel to be on the lookout for a 2001 Toyota registered to David Malboeuf, and the cousins were arrested the following morning by an Apache County Sheriff's deputy.

The Malboeufs face five counts related to the unattended campfire in the Apache National Forest.

The Wallow Fire was the largest wildfire in Arizona history.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... z1VyYImfI2

[chumley]

48-hours in jail.

Justice is served! :roll: :tt:

Fair-use excerpt:

Two cousins who pleaded guilty to starting the largest wildfire in Arizona history were sentenced Wednesday to 48 hours in jail and 200 hours of community service.

Caleb Joshua Malboeuf, 27, and David Wayne Malboeuf, 25, were camping in the Bear Wallow wilderness in eastern Arizona on Memorial Day weekend in 2011 when they set out for a hike and left behind a campfire they believed to be extinguished.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... dfire.html

[big_load]

@chumley Not even as much as Lindsay Lohan.

[jimmyfish]

The two morons that started the LARGEST fire in state history recieved 48 hours in jail and 200 hours of community service

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... dfire.html

The Judge was...U.S. Magistrate Mark E. Aspey. His appointment is up on March 17, 2013 and public comments are being taken on whether he should be recommended for reappointment through August 31, 2012 via e-mail at commentsMEA@azd.uscourts.gov. Let them know this is an outrage!


I sent my email

[azbackpackr]

Hmmm... The fire was a good thing, you know? And it would probably have happened on a similar scale due to lightning, if it had not been accidentally started by the two doofuses. It did cost a lot of money to fight it, but in the long run, it will prove to be a really good thing for this mountain. I am not sure what the laws are or how much leeway the judge had in sentencing them?

Remember, fire is good, and fire is a very important part of this ecosystem.

[outdoor_lover]

32 Homes, 4 Businesses, and 30 Outbuildings. They could still get nailed pretty good, where it will hurt. Their wallets. They have an actual Hearing scheduled strictly for Restitution. If these citizens take the time to show up, these guys could get socked with a pretty big judgement. And that's just the Private Citizens, they don't make mention of what the State or FS could be asking for. There's still a chance that these guys will "pay" quite severely for their carelessness.

[jimmyfish]

Man I hope so. The victims all need to speak up.

[chumley]

32 Homes, 4 Businesses, and 30 Outbuildings. They could still get nailed pretty good, where it will hurt. Their wallets. They have an actual Hearing scheduled strictly for Restitution. If these citizens take the time to show up, these guys could get socked with a pretty big judgement. And that's just the Private Citizens, they don't make mention of what the State or FS could be asking for. There's still a chance that these guys will "pay" quite severely for their carelessness.

Great so they owe $20 million. Next year they file for bankruptcy protection, and nobody ever sees a dime. :roll:

[Jim]

The reaction here goes to show that creating conditions that lead to disaster, or conditions that nearly force people into extreme situations that can cause them to commit crimes (not the case here, just a point) is hardly looked at and mostly ignored, but the devastation that results from one or two stupid but also unlucky individuals, who basically do something thousands have done without starting such a massive event, that is somehow something so bad that all but a hanging is injustice to those who view things, well, pretty much as is exhibited here.

Where is the anger when a NF decides to suppress a fire in a wilderness area in monsoon season? Where is the outrage, the letter writing, and the sense of injustice when a forest ecosystem that burned every few years on average, hasn't burned in over a century?

[outdoor_lover]

@chumley
I am not totally sure about this, but I believe that Bankruptcy only eases your Debt and protects you from Creditors, I do not believe that Court Judgements are affected by Bankruptcies.

[Jim]

Draco would be proud.

[Sredfield]

As angry as everyone is, these kids could never pay what their carelessness caused, judgments or not. We want somewhere to go with the anger and frustration, because we can't take it to the failed science of the last 100 years of forest management, which was believed to be the right thing to do for most of that time. And that is the real cause, a simple bolt of lightning would have resulted in the same outcome, maybe not now, maybe not in a year or 10 years, but inevitably.

[RickVincent]

The way I see it, A "simple bolt of lightning" is most often accompanied by rain, sometimes for days on end. Sure, the fire may have started and burned thousands of acres, but unlikely that it would have burned this extensively had it happened during our wet thunderstorm season. Lightning is natural...What these two guys did was unnatural and it came at the worse possible time of year with no assistance from mother nature in sight.

Because of boneheads like this, our forest service now has to babysit all of us. How do you like all those closures that hiker-types like us had to deal with during May and June this year? There will be more and more of these closures in years to come, as the forest service will be unable to sort out the responsible and respectful outdoors folk from the morons. Everyone who enjoys the Arizona outdoors are going to pay a price thanks to the Malboeufs, and all the others who have destroyed our precious landscapes with their stupidity.

Impossible for these two boneheads to ever be able to pay back the damages (way too big), and senseless to throw them in prison for any extended amount of time. I agree with the judge's decision on those two counts. However, community service is where the punishment should have really been laid down. Five 40-hour work weeks of community service hardly seems fitting. Perhaps Judge Aspey should go to the White Mountains and assist with the clean up and rebuilding.

[azbackpackr]

You may have a point, but as I mentioned, many people who worked for Alpine RD had believed that a fire of exactly that nature, starting in that area, would run just as it did, no matter what the cause. It's very unfortunate that the campfire restrictions were not in place. I was up here the day the fire started. The wind was howling that day.

A related topic: I find it interesting that as far as I know, the news media has never once referred to the two guys as "backpackers," an oversight for which I am grateful. Those guys were, in fact, backpacking. But many of the news media types don't actually understand what backpacking is, so they don't use the term very much. Because if they did it would make us all look bad, "Backpackers Cause 500,000 acre forest fire" is not a headline I would like to see splashed all over the place.

So, just this one time, I'm actually thankful for the ignorance of news reporters.

[Jim]

Rick, dry lightning in the SW starts a lot of fires. Depending on the decade, often more than double the number of human caused fires. Rain and lightning are not always together, and early season dry storms are very common. There was dry lightning early on, after the Wallow began, and the Gila had some ignitions from it at the same time as the Wallow. This year's big fire in the Gila was entirely lightning started. If lightning caused fires were rare, we wouldn't have the ecosystems or the species we do on this, and most other continents. Aside from that, for eons, humans started fires, whatever your take on our role as natural or not. It has only been since the 1920s that human caused fires have been seen as unnatural and bad, largely in part to a massive propaganda campaign by the FS and the Dixie Crusaders of the SE US. This has had almost as much of a negative impact on ecosystems in the east and west, as turning forests and prairies into corn and wheat fields. I've written before that I feel large parts of the national forests should have their roads removed, grazing removed or severely limited, and large block fires be lit every 3 to 5 years. That is about the only way we'll stop having these large destructive fires.

[RickVincent]

One thing that has changed a great deal since the 20's is the number of people that inhabit these forest areas. Used to be okay to let big areas burn. Now, we have to protect people, homes and communities. We've populated these areas a great deal in the last 100 years, but the forest maintenance just hasn't kept pace. Seems to be a lot of agreement on that particular issue.

[Sredfield]

Something nags me about the concept that fire suppression has caused the tinder box situation we live in now. Some of the biggest and most dramatic fires known occurred in the 1900-1915 ear. I'm thinking of the burn in eastern Washington-northern ID, and several in northern MN and WI. These were "natural" forests then and there certainly hadn't been 100 years of suppression prior to these horrific burns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910

[Jim]

Rick, there are still huge areas away from towns and any inhabited settlements that can easily accept fire, and areas near towns need fire as well, they just require smaller burns. 50,000 acre burns over a week with use of aerial ignition and areas closures are possible near the rim, in wilderness areas, and up on the Kaibab very easily. 500 acres in a day is fairly ambitious for a burn in a parcel next to Flagstaff or Show low. You've got to understand that after the initial entry and one or two re-burns, fuel loads are way down and smoke is a lot less. Large aerial ignitions allow for fires that burn large areas and put up a good plume but are basically done very quickly and blow away. They are used back east on military bases a lot. We could probably do well with them in fall before the duff gets cold, and after a monsoon season leaves some grasses to carry the fire, once frost dries them out, that. More use of fire would also allow forest managers to allow lightning starts to run with less suppression cost, or virtually no cost.

Sredfrield, 1910 was hardly a time when logging had not reached the area of that fire. Unless it was a 1988 Yellowstone type of situation, I suspect that if the type of fire represented an aberration from prehistoric patterns, that logging was a large part of the fuel build up situation. The big 1919 fires in the lakes states were in large part due to the clear cut logging and massive slash buildup that was left behind. The original forest was completely different from the composition of trees that occupies a lot of that area today. It's not wise just to point to history without considering the conditions surrounding the event. In the case of the SW US and our forest types, we have little in common with forests that would normally experience large, hot stand replacing fires infrequently. There was a thread about not suppressing fire since we can't win in bad year anyway, where that was discussed. SW forests have more in common with prairies and the former fire maintained forests of the SE US. The difference between a 50 year old ponderosa pine stand with 500 trees per acre burning on a hot June day with 40 MPH winds from the same weather conditions but 10 to 20 trees per acre is almost as dramatic as the difference between a longleaf pine forest with 20 year saw palmetto rough and 2 year rough.

[RickVincent]

$500/month for life. These guys will never forget the cost of their carelessness.

http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/11/ ... stitution/

[outdoor_lover]

Finally!!! Maybe if this gets publicized enough, people will actually think twice and be more careful...A restitution with TEETH! Yay!!!!

[azbackpackr]

It's interesting that one of them wants to help rebuild the homes. It's also interesting that the reporter had the ability to see more than one point of view, to see how it is a tragedy for the young men as well. I was glad to read the guys have ways to earn money. At no point in my lifetime could I have afforded a payment like that.