Do you have any experience with grass fires? Even when lit by fire departments for the purpose of fire control, they sometimes get out of control and spread beyond their intended area. I know of at least one Federal Installation in which this exact thing happened. They made a mistake. Nobody charged them with felonies, though the feds did end up having to pay for the damages they caused.
At the state level, I know of dozens of such instances in the last decade.
And to criminalize an accident? To give someone a FELONY in the absence of mens rea? To thereafter deprive them of their rights to own guns?
What they are being persecuted for is not giving the Federal Potentates sufficient respect regarding their "I'm in Charge" attitudes.
This looks like a vendetta attack on these men. At worst they should have been fined. Maybe after they had been fined, if they still persisted, then perhaps jailing them becomes a reasonable option.
If there is more to this than I have heard so far, i'll revise my opinion, but up till now it looks like someone is making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Well there is. There is the fire that the Hammonds started in 1999 and which spread to federal land. After that the BLM told them that they weren't supposed to be setting fires with out a permit. Then there's the fire they set in 2001 and which spread to federal land and burned out 130 acres. According to the trial transcript that land was unusable for two years. And then we have the latest fire, set while Forest Service firefighters were already battling a nearby fire that lightning had started. When the Hammonds started that one there was a burn-ban in effect due to dry conditions. But they started it anyway and it got out of control like the other ones had. That's when they were charged with the 2006 and the 2001 fires.
So we have the Hammonds, who have had numerous warnings and apparently extensive experience with what happens when your fire gets out of control. They nearly fried a relative during the second fire and could well have put Forest Service fire teams in peril with the 2006 fire. Apparently they don't think the law applies to them, which I guess means they're Democrats. So yes I think the charges were appropriate and if you still think this is all overblown and vindictive then we'll have to agree to disagree. Wouldn't be the first time.