From Wikipedia:
The Spring Creek Fire was a wildfire near Fort Garland and La Veta, Colorado in Costilla and Huerfano counties in southern Colorado. The fire burned 108,045 acres (43,724 ha) and was at the time the third-largest wildfire in Colorado history.
Origin and trial:
The Spring Creek Fire was started on Wednesday, June 27, 2018 near Fort Garland, Colorado and southwest of Parachute. Jesper Jørgensen, 52, a citizen of Denmark who was in the U.S. illegally (he had overstayed his visa), was arrested and charged with arson. He was camping in his truck and using a fire pit to grill food. Jørgensen claimed he was unaware of the open fire ban; he assumed the fire was fully extinguished, but was woken from a nap by the smell of smoke a few hours later. He initially attempted to extinguish it himself, and when he couldn’t stop it he called 911. The fire burned the western flank of the Sangre de Cristo foothills, on the south side of La Veta Pass. It was finally contained almost three months later on September 10 — after more than 140 structures were destroyed.
Shortly after his arrest in June 2018, Jørgensen was declared mentally incompetent, which delayed his case; he was facing 349 counts of arson. According to the Colorado Sun, in the spring of 2022 after more than 2½ years, a judge dismissed criminal charges because Jørgensen was repeatedly assessed as unable to stand trial. He was diagnosed with delusional disorder.
Senior Judge Gregory Lyman had hoped that Jørgensen would be deported if the charges were dropped. However, he said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no intention of doing that; after an unsuccessful attempt to have Jørgensen involuntarily medicated, Lyman said he believed the law required him to dismiss the case.
~ Thanks and a tip of the hardhat to Tatanka Hotshots (on facebook).
In 2018 on this date, Bill wrote that the National MAC Group had just moved the national fire level up to PL4 “due to increased significant wildland fire activity from central TX to WA state, the commitment of IMTs, and the potential for new wildland fires across multiple GACCs.”
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