Seventeen months after admitting he accidentally started the 45,000 acre Sawmill Fire in the Santa Rita Mountains, a U.S. Border Patrol agent has been formally charged with a misdemeanor.
United States Magistrate Judge Leslie Bowman issued a formal summons Tuesday for Dennis Dickey to appear in U.S. District Court on the misdemeanor charge of causing a fire without a permit.
According to court records, Dickey started a fire by shooting a rifle at a target he constructed in the Coronado National Forest on April 23, 2017. He was not on duty at the time.
In support of Dickey’s summons, U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Brent Robinson wrote:
“Inside the target Dickey placed an amount of Tannerite, an explosive substance, intended to detonate when shot by a high-velocity firearm bullet. Dickey fired the shot that exploded the Tannerite target and the resulting explosion caused a fire that spread and resulted in damage to more than 45,000 acres of land, and that explosion was caught on film by a witness.”
Dickey did not have a permit “allowing him to cause timber, trees, slash, brush or grass to burn,” Robinson wrote.