Where's their proof of that? And if any existed, I wonder if it was ever entered into evidence?
Apparently that's what at teenage relative testified at the trial. He had started the 2001 fire at the request of Hammond, senior. That one got out of control and had spread to federal land, and almost trapped the teenager and forced him to take shelter in a creek.
This was not the first time for the Hammonds, who have leased federal grazing land for a long time. They started a fire in 1999 which spread to federal land, and the BLM gave them a warning and told them they couldn't set backfires without BLM permission. They set the fire in 2001, which almost killed their relative and which burned out 140 acres of federal land and took it out of production for two years. And they set the backfire in 2006 in spite of the fact that a burn ban was in effect. That's when the government charged them for the 2001 and the 2006 fires, and which got them in the pickle they're in.