The September 2001 fire. On September 30,
2001, petitioners led an unauthorized hunting expedition
on federal land and illegally shot several deer.
C.A. E.R. 77, 82, 87-89, 92-96, 239-240. A BLM district
manager, who was lawfully hunting in the same
area, ran into and spoke with Dwight at about 8 a.m.;
witnessed the shooting of several deer about 30 to 45
minutes later; and then briefly saw Steven at the
scene before Steven ducked into the brush to hide. Id.
at 50-51, 79, 92-94, 96-97. As the district manager
drove away in his truck with his companions, they saw
a group of four men behind them carrying rifles. Id.
at 95. The district manager told his companions that
he was “very uncomfortable with the situation, and
[they] needed to leave,” which they did. Id. at 95-96.
After the district manager departed, Steven handed
out boxes of matches and stated that “we [a]re
going to light up the whole country on fire.” C.A. E.R.
202-203; see Pet. App. 3; see also C.A. E.R. 97-99
(sequence of events). Steven gave one of the boxes of
matches to his then 13-year-old nephew, Dusty Hammond,
and instructed the boy to walk in the direction
along the fence line and to drop the lit matches “until
[he] r[a]n out.” C.A. E.R. 204-205, 207. Dusty complied,
dropping lit matches to the grass along the
fence line separating petitioners’ land from federal
land.