A Tucson man is ordered to pay $180,000 to extinguish a wildfire that started on Mount Lemmon in April 2023 when he fired an incendiary shotgun at a homemade target. It was done.
Michael J. Sobcinski, 64, was ordered to pay restitution and a $330 fine to the U.S. Forest Service after pleading guilty in late December to firing an incendiary device without a permit and burning trees, brush and grass. commanded.
At a hearing last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Ambry ordered Sobczynski to pay restitution and a fine for starting the wildfires. Mr. Sobczynski will be paying $200 a month for the time being.
On April 30, 2023, Sobczynski was at the Molino Basin Shooting Range in the Coronado National Forest when he approached two people who were recording video and asked if he could shoot a homemade target. They agreed and recorded that he was shot five times with an incendiary grenade, according to court records. Shortly after firing the volley, the men noticed “multiple fires”, left the range and called 911, according to a probable cause statement written by Forest Service Special Agent Brent Robinson. and reported the fire.
The fire, dubbed the Molino II Fire, burned about 115 acres and forced authorities to close Catalina Highway so crews could extinguish the blaze in the mountains north of Tucson. The next day, helicopters and air tankers attacked the north and south sides of the fire using water from Rose Canyon Lake.
The cost to extinguish the fire exceeded $200,000, according to Justice Department spokesman Zach J. Staub.
Two witnesses then called the Pima County Sheriff's Department and said they had video evidence of the fire. Days after the fire broke out, federal authorities released the video and asked for the public's help in identifying Sobchinsky.
In the video, a man wearing a light gray shirt and cargo pants walks forward with a shotgun and fires five shots at a target covered in gold reflective material. There were also two cardboard targets.
The video panned to the left and smoke and flames could be clearly seen growing at nearly a dozen locations.
Robinson linked Sobczynski to that video and also to one of the 911 calls made when the fire started. He interviewed Mr. Sobczynski, who complained that the video made him look “fat” and later admitted that he was in the Molino Basin when the fire started. Mr. Sobczynski told Mr. Robinson that he had “unknowingly” loaded the shotgun with incendiary ammunition and that he had “just taken it randomly from a stash of ammunition.”
Stove said the case was investigated by the U.S. Forest Service and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona in Tucson.
“Racetrack fire'' caused by explosives
In September, federal authorities dropped charges against 54-year-old Glenn D. O'Neill, who set off a racetrack fire in fall 2020 by firing into a canister filled with explosives.
O'Neill was connected to a shotgun and tannerite found at the start of a wildfire that burned 50 acres in the fall of 2020. He was charged with using explosives and burning timber, trees and bushes in violation of local orders. The federal complaint, issued Aug. 31, says it was authorized by permit.
Investigators discovered the fire at the racetrack was caused by an explosive, and found “various evidence” at the source of the fire, including the remains of a shotgun and Tannerite container, according to court records. Investigators questioned O'Neal outside his home on Oct. 30 because the remaining items were linked to him, according to a complaint written by Forest Service officer Mark Sanburn.
