PENDLETON — Criminal charges have been dismissed against Ricky Snodgrass, the U.S. Forest Service employee who was arrested for reckless burning after overseeing a prescribed fire in Grant County in October 2022.
The case was thrown out of the U.S. District Court for Oregon on June 5 by Magistrate Judge Andrew D. Hallman, prompting a flurry of reactions from both sides of the issue.
Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley, who made the arrest after the Starr 6 fire escaped containment in the Malheur National Forest near Bear Valley and charred about 20 acres of private land, expressed disappointment and called for change in the way the Forest Service manages prescribed burns.
PENDLETON — Criminal charges have been dismissed against Ricky Lane Snodgrass, the U.S. Forest Service employee charged with reckless burning after overseeing a prescribed fire in Grant County in October 2022.
Charges were moved from Grant County Circuit Court to federal court in March 2024.
An evidentiary hearing was scheduled for July 11 and a jury trial was tentatively set to start Nov. 12.
Ricky Snodgrass had been overseeing a controlled burn in the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon. The fire escaped containment and burned roughly 20 acres.
PENDLETON — Lawyers for a Forest Service firefighter charged with reckless burning in Grant County Circuit Court are trying to move the trial to federal court instead.
Attorneys with the Angeli Law Group of Portland filed a motion on March 15 with the Pendleton division of the U.S. District Court for Oregon asking that the case against Forest Service burn boss Ricky Snodgrass be removed from the Grant County jurisdiction and placed in the hands of a federal judge.
Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley arrested Snodgrass on Oct. 19, 2022, while he was supervising a prescribed burn in the Malheur National Forest near Bear Valley. Embers from the planned burn area blew across the Izee-Paulina Highway and charred close to 20 acres of timber and grazing land belonging to an adjacent private ranch before the blaze could be put out.
The unprecedented prosecution of a Forest Service burn boss on a reckless burning charge is drawing a lot of attention to Grant County, much of it negative.