An accused firefighter apparently bragged to his teenage accomplice on the telephone of having started fires in 2003
By LAURA ZUCKERMAN,
Idaho Falls Post Register (Idaho)
Copyright 2006 The Post Register
All Rights Reserved
SALMON - A federal firefighter accused of persuading a teenager to set a blaze on the outskirts of Salmon on Aug. 13 boasted in a taped telephone conversation that he was behind a string of fires in 2003, law enforcement officials said Sunday.
Investigators in Lemhi County got their break in the case against Levi Michael Miller after listening to a taped conversation between him and a young probationer.
Officials said Miller, 22, not only urged the Salmon teen to set a fire at the Smedley subdivision but also bragged about setting other fires.
Since hearing the tape, the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office has widened its investigation of suspicious blazes on public and private land near Salmon in recent years. In a news release Saturday, it reported arresting another suspect, Dennis Patrick Gates, 32.
“Mr. Miller has been doing this for quite awhile,” said Deputy Sheriff Terry Stratton, who said additional charges were pending. “We need to find out how many people were aware of what he was doing. We will be interviewing everyone on that engine crew.”
Miller, who was employed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, was arrested Thursday night and remains in the Lemhi County Jail on $30,000 bond. He is charged with conspiracy to commit arson in connection with a fire that swept across a half-acre of brush west of Salmon before local and BLM crews snuffed it out.
The penalty for conspiracy to commit arson is a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a fine of as much as $50,000.
The investigation started after the county’s chief probation officer, Leah Jarnagin, heard the tape.
“I had a gut feeling it was something big and we needed to get on it ASAP,” she said.
Stratton said the case has drawn international attention.
“It’s a very serious matter,” he said. “Anytime a public official steps over the line, there’s a breakdown in the system somewhere.”
Since the news, members of the Lemhi County firefighting community have plead for understanding.
Arson charges also have been filed in recent years against federal firefighters in Arizona and California.
In interviews Sunday, fire managers stressed how relatively few firefighters have been convicted of arson compared with their overall numbers.
“There is the concern out there that the actions of one person may be taken to reflect on the organization as a whole,” said David Howell, spokesman for the BLM-Idaho Falls District, which includes the Salmon office.
The agency feels the same sense of shock and betrayal that any public organization feels when one of its own is accused of committing a crime, he said.
The news about Miller “shakes us to our core values,” said Jeff Knudson, supervisor of the 10-member BLM fire crew in Salmon. “They are good, hard-working people, and I’m very proud of those folks. It casts a cloud over the Salmon BLM and all firefighters. … We know our organization has to work hard to gain the trust of Salmon back again, and that’s what we’re going to do.”