I was reading the news this morning, and one of the headlines was that the volunteer firefighter that is responsible for setting the boulder four mile fire will not get any criminal charges. I guess, I should give some background first....
This is a 71 year old man, that is on the Four mile Volunteer Fire Department. Almost a week before the blaze, he had a controlled burn at his house. He was burning trash in a fire pit. He put the fire out, doused it with water, and then went on about his business. several days later, the wind picked up, re-ignited the fire, and the rest is history. He was actually the first person to report the fire, and then went out and fought it on the front lines, and in the process, lost his own house to the blaze. The D.A. has found that he acted responsibly, dousing the fire pit several times, turning the ash,, dousing the pit again. All sounds like a good ending to a bad story. But my question is...... why were we even contemplating criminal charges.
Apparently, the Sheriff's office had given him a citation, there was a large investigation of the fire, all to see if we could somehow pin criminal charges against someone. Why is our first thought to punish someone? Why can't things just happen, without us immediately thinking that someone must have broke the law for this bad thing to happen? Let me tell you something, sometimes bad stuff happens for no other reason, than it is time for bad stuff to happen. And many times, it is no one's fault, it just happens.
Anyway, I am glad they are not going to press charges against him. I only hope that the people that have suffered such a great loss in the fire, can put there lives back together and move on. Or at least, that is as I see it.
No comments:
Post a Comment