Hours before Rick Snodgrass was cuffed and loaded into a squad car, he’d called the sheriff himself. The United States Forest Service burn boss had requested the help of local law enforcement in Grant county, Oregon, reporting his crew was being harassed while conducting a controlled burn within the Malheur national forest.
It was the second burn that crews had conducted in the area in two weeks, with flames intended to char about 300 acres. But that warm October afternoon, the treatment did not go according to plan.
