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CNN Live Today

U.S. Forest Service Worker Feeling Heat in Colorado

Aired June 17, 2002 - 10:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And now off to the wildfires in Colorado, where authorities say a U.S. Forest Service worker is feeling the heat. She's changed her story about how those wildfires began. She's due to be in federal court today, and she's going to be charged with starting the fires out there.

For the latest on that and the fires, let's go now to CNN's Rusty Dornin reporting from Denver.

Hello, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, the sad and sort of incredible thing about this story is that this is the woman, this forest employee, Terry Barton was the person who actually reported the fire in the first place on June 8th. What apparently did happen is that she has been very upset and received a letter from her husband and decided to stop while she was patrolling in the forest to prevent any illegal campfires, she broke the law and lit the letter on fire thought she put it out in the campfire ring, but then drove away, but apparently it did get outside the ring and start a fire. She then apparently told authorities that she had come upon this fire, that she had nothing to do with it, and investigators saw several inconsistencies in her story, and when they finally nailed her down, she admitted that she did set the fire.

Coloradans are shocked and stunned about this, that one of their own, especially a person who was assigned to protect the forest of Colorado, had done that job for 18 years, would do such a thing, and most have little empathy for her emotional state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They want to lynch her. They want to string her up and lynch her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's aggravating, real aggravating, to know that somebody from this area and that provision.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody made a mistake. Somebody wasn't thinking. Sounds like personal papers. It was under a little bit of stress or something, and just wasn't thinking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of angry individuals. It's sick. Especially the fact that she's part of the Forest Service makes its even worse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: She's scheduled to appear in court in about an hour. She could face up to 15 years in prison and half million dollar fine. The Hayman Fire has already consumed over 103,000 acres. They think it's going to cost nearly $52 million before it's all over. One thing interesting, she gave an interview to a local paper the other day. Apparently they did a story about the fact that she was the one that reported the fire, and she told the reporter she wasn't sleeping well at night, and I imagine that she wasn't sleeping very well.

HARRIS: I think I can understand why. Absolutely incredible. Amazing irony there.

Rusty Dornin, thank you very much. We'll get some more progress reports on that fire later.

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