A 39-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of igniting a more-than-30,000-acre wildfire in northeast Colorado last month, which destroyed homes, outbuildings and cattle in its path.
Patrick Svoboda was allegedly welding on a metal feed trough in a dry cornfield in roughly 50 mph winds on the day the blaze began, sending flames racing across the drought-parched prairie toward the town of Haxtun, the Logan County Sheriff’s Office says.
According to an arrest warrant, within a day of the fire’s ignition on March 6, a sheriff’s deputy — after having pinpointed the fire to starting on Svoboda’s property — knocked on his door only to be greeted by a lawyer from Denver.
“(The lawyer) informed me he was the counsel for Mr. Svoboda’s insurance company and his client would not be allowed to speak to me, per his legal advice,” Investigator Alex Eckhardt wrote in the warrant.
Svoboda is accused of fourth-degree arson — a Class 4 felony — and reckless endangerment in the fire and was arrested last week and booked into jail without incident. Three homes, several outbuilding and vehicles and hundreds of cattle were destroyed in the fire, which scorched 32,546 acres.
Eckhardt wrote in the warrant that Svoboda had “consciously disregarded the Red Flag Warning” that had been issued the day the fire began and that Svoboda had not reported the blaze.
“All of the evidence pointed to this fire being the result of reckless human action,” the Logan County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The warrant lists nine victims of the fire, who together lost more than $420,000 in lost structures and thousands more in farmland. Officials have said it can take up to three years for land to recover after such a fierce wildfire.
One victim reported losing $500,000 in land and property alone.
“It’s pretty devastating to a lot of the farmers and ranchers,” Phillips County Commissioner Joe Kinni said as the fire was still burning. “The economic damage to this county is going to be phenomenal.”
The fire began around 11:30 a.m. on March 6 northeast of Sterling, near the Logan County town of Proctor. Within eight hours, the fire had raced 23 miles across Interstate 76 into Phillips County, toward Haxtun.
Haxtun is about 150 miles northeast of Denver.
It took about two days for the fire to be fully contained and extinguished by an army of volunteer firefighters, farmers and first responders from across the state. One firefighter suffered a minor injury because of blowing debris, but no one was seriously injured or killed in the massive fire.
Officials have credited local farmers and volunteer firefighters with helping halt the massive fire.
Matt Branch, regional fire management officer for the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, said during the blaze that March wildfires in northeast Colorado are not unusual. “The normal fire season on the Eastern Plains is this time of year,” he said.
Branch said, however, that the sheer amount of acreage involved was atypical. Local officials said it was the fiercest and largest fire they had ever seen. One volunteer fireman called the blaze “hell.”
“It has been amazing to see everyone come together for each other during this time,” the Logan County Sheriff’s Office news release said. “Watching neighbors helping neighbors and strangers helping strangers has been remarkable. And that’s what makes it great to live in northeastern Colorado.”
