Posted on 06/19/2002 7:01:12 PM PDT by gcruse
Grand Jury Indicts Wildfire Suspect
The Associated Press
D E N V E R, June 19 — A federal grand jury charged a veteran U.S. Forest Service worker Wednesday with intentionally setting the largest wildfire in Colorado history, saying she maliciously sent flames licking through bone-dry timber southwest of Denver.
The charges came after prosecutors expressed doubt about Terry Barton's story that the fire got out of hand when she tried to burn a letter from her estranged husband. Investigators now contend the fire was staged to look like an escaped campfire.
Barton, 38, was charged with setting fire to timber in a national forest, damaging federal property, injuring a firefighter and using fire to commit a felony. U.S. Attorney John Suthers said two of the counts are related to arson.
"These counts reflect the government's contention that the Hayman fire was deliberately set," Suthers said. "Beyond that, we cannot and will not go into specifics regarding the defendant's intent or motive."
If convicted of all counts, she could face up to 65 years in prison and a $1 million fine. Barton was being held without bail pending a bond hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court.
Her attorney, Rick Williamson, declined to comment.
Barton's mother, Wanda Haddock of Dunlap, Calif., said she spoke with her daughter by phone Wednesday and does not believe she intended to start the fire.
"She ain't that kind of person," Haddock said. "She loved her job and she wouldn't do anything to threaten that job."
The arrest of the 18-year Forest Service employee over the weekend stunned colleagues and angered residents who had been evacuated because of the fire. Since the fire began June 8, it has grown to 135,000 acres, destroyed 25 homes and forced the evacuation of 7,500 people. It is far from being contained and officials warn it could smolder until the first snows arrive this fall.
The indictment alleges Barton "willfully and without authority set on fire timber, underbrush, grass and other inflammable material."
It also claims she "maliciously by means of fire damage" destroyed federal property and "directly and proximately caused personal injury" to firefighter Ryan Beyer, who suffered a broken arm.
Investigators said Barton initially told them she was patrolling the Pike National Forest about 40 miles southwest of Denver when she smelled smoke and discovered the fire.
After she was confronted with contradictory evidence a week later, Barton told investigators she was burning a letter from her estranged husband in a campfire ring but the fire accidentally got out of control. She said she tried unsuccessfully to douse it.
On Monday, a criminal complaint against Barton charged her with setting fire to timber in a national forest, damaging federal property and lying to federal investigators.
The charge of lying was dropped in Wednesday's indictment, but Suthers wouldn't say why.
Barton, who has two teenage daughters, and her family moved to Florissant near the Pike National Forest in the early 1990s from California.
She started work for the Forest Service as a seasonal employee and less than a year ago was hired as a permanent, part-time employee. Friends described her as a dedicated and tireless worker who loved the outdoors.
"This whole thing is just totally out of character for her," said Richard Grenfell, Barton's neighbor for six years. "I have a hard time believing she actually intentionally set it."
I heard a dude who was fighting this fire being interviewed last week. He was going on and on about how "exciting" it was to be "head-to-head" with something "fabulous."
He was weird, just like this Barton. Childish, almost.
Whether they get the thrill of fighting a big fire or are working with union superiors to "grow the beaurocracy". they're dangerous.
You can't make this kind of stuff up!
Possibly. I grew up in a small town that had a volunteer fire dept. From the Chief down – all unpaid volunteers. They found the need to hire a full-time Chief at one point. They subsequently went from 2 fires in six years to about two fires a month. The typical fire was a grassfire, but the new fires were houses – usually old/abandoned ones.
The new Fire Chief made a big push for a full-time FD. The city council went along with it. A police detective began to sense trouble when he saw a fire and drove up on it to discover the Fire Chief was already on the scene – before it had even been called in!
Well, you can probably guess the rest. The Fire Chief was a Fire Bug and was setting fires to justify enlarging his fiefdom. He’d been accused and convicted of similar activity on the east coast, but nobody checked I guess. There was no loss of life, and the structures that were burned were nuisances more than anything. Still, they were not his to burn down.
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