Thronson “Not Liable” For Fire

DAYTON - Former Columbia County District Judge Charles Thronson was vindicated Tuesday afternoon after he spent more than two years defending himself against a civil lawsuit filed by his neighbors Gale Acers and Robert Hollingsworth.

In a verdict opposed by just one of 12 jurors, Thronson was found "not liable" for damages to commercial timber owned by Acers and Hollingsworth who claimed it was damaged in a backfire set by Thronson on his Cahill Mountain property in August 2006.

The backfire, Thronson testified Thursday, was lit on his own land in the face of the oncoming Columbia Complex fire, a wildfire kindled that summer by lightning strikes and spreading over the next few days into the largest fire in the nation recorded in 2006, burning 109,000 forested and rural acres east and southeast of Waitsburg and Dayton.

His actions, which he said were intended to protect his own property under imminent threat from the Columbia Complex fires, were the subject of a 2007 investigation by the Department of Natural Resources that charged Thronson's "burnout" caught at least one firefighter between blazes and had to be controlled by crews fighting the nearby wildfires.

The suit recalls how Acers and Hollingsworth bought their land in 1991 with the goal of running it as a commercial timber business, planting tens of thousands of seedlings on it earlier this decade. It charges that about three days after lightning started the fires and they were migrating throughout the county, Thronson took actions that "intentionally" damaged or destroyed their property.

The accusers charged that Thronson had "no authority, responsibility, right, permission or approval to ignite fires on property belonging to plaintiffs," or to ignite fires that he knew or should have known would "result in burning timber on plaintiffs' property."

Thronson, a Columbia County District Court Judge from 1974 - 2002, vigorously defended his actions.

Fed by winds of up to 15 miles per hour, the fire approaching all the parties' properties on Cahill Mountain was very fast and his efforts were intended to save the land, he said. State law requires that every person with knowledge of a fire must use "every reasonable effort to suppress the fire."

In his deposition, Thronson described how the fire was coming toward him.

"A man could have run sideways and gotten on the other side of this and saved himself, but it come a'galloping through here, and when it hit the top of this ridge it sounded like a freight train, just a 'whoo,' here she comes, there's no question about it," he told the court.

Thronson said he and his friends and neighbors worked for several days clearing strips with tractors as fireguards to shield the properties from the fast-moving burn. In the end, when it appeared the fire was fast approaching, a backfire seemed like the only way to try to stop it.

The former judge's property encompassed 500 acres of grassland in CRP (Crop Reduction Program), a hunting cabin and a barn.

The 2007 DNR investigation reported mixed reactions to Thronson's actions. It took him to task for engaging in "voluntary suppression" efforts he did not communicate to the firefighting authorities in the area.

Columbia County Fire District Captain Jeromy Phinney told investigator Dennis Heryford he did not believe the fire within Rodgers Gulch was threatening Cahill Mountain at that time.

In court on Monday, however, jurors heard from Spokane resident Walt Wruble, a wild land fire consultant and former fire behavior expert with the Department of Natural Resources. Thronson's attorney, Timothy Cronin, also of Spokane, hired Wruble in 2008 after Acers and Hollingsworth filed suit against Thronson that April, to do his own investigation of the backfire.

Wruble testified in court that his investigation showed that Thronson's backfire was lit on his own property and in the face of a hot, fast and new arm of the Columbia Complex fire. Wruble stated that the backfi re met with the main fire and prevented even more property in the area from being destroyed. No fire fighters were assigned that day to Cahill Mountain, he said.

"In my opinion, the backfire was prudent in this particular situation," he told jurors. "Cahill Mountain Road in my estimation was the only place to have made a stand against that fire."

The jury heard testimony for five days and spent 40 minutes deliberating Tuesday afternoon. The key question jurors were told to answer: Did Thronson trespass on Acers and Hollingsworth property? The answer returned was, "No." Visiting Benton County Judge Carrie Runge declared Thronson therefore not liable for the nearly $300,000 in damages sought by Acers and Hollingsworth.