A federal court in Oregon has dismissed charges against a Forest Service “burn boss” whose prescribed fire in the Malheur National Forest in 2022 escaped onto a ranch.
The case against Rick Snodgrass, who’d been indicted by a Grant County grand jury on a misdemeanor charge of reckless burning, was dismissed after his lawyers moved it to U.S. District Court for Oregon and argued he was immune from state prosecution.
State prosecutors didn’t object, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Hallman dismissed the case Wednesday.
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In addition to Snodgrass’ immunity under the Constitution’s “supremacy clause,” his lawyers said, prosecutors didn’t demonstrate that he’d acted recklessly in supervising the planned fire on Oct. 19 of that year.
