How culverts create problems for migratory fish in Oregon and Washington opb.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from opb.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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.