Oregon Public Broadcasting

A federal judge in Spokane has sentenced a former Forest Service fire commander to three months time.

Ellreese Daniels had pleaded guilty to lying to a team investigating the Thirtymile forest fire in central Washington in 2001. Four firefighters died in that fire when they were overrun by flames. Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports.

Judge Fred Van Sickle says he’s sending Ellreese Daniels to a state work release facility, not because he believes Daniels was responsible for the deaths of the four firefighters, but because he lied to investigators.

Daniels was the incident commander on the Thirtymile fire on July 10, 2001. Daniels and his crew had gone out to battle the blaze in a narrow canyon when the wind whipped up.

A huge wall of flames trapped them. Four were overcome by smoke and died.

When a Forest Service team came asking questions later, Daniels lied when he said he’d warned his charges to move to a safer place.

Government lawyers say Daniels knew he was in trouble and lied to protect himself.

One of the dead was 18-year-old Karen Fitzpatrick. Her mother Kathie was disappointed that Daniels wasn’t tried on the original involuntary manslaughter charges. She says Daniels didn’t know what he was doing.

Kathie Fitzpatrick: “There was all the time in the world to deploy shelters there and he said, ‘no, the fire will burn around us.’ If they had just deployed shelters like any ordinary incident commander, they would have lived.”

Daniels will serve his three months in a state work release facility. He’ll also serve three years’ probation and complete mental health and substance abuse evaluations.