Dwight Hammond and his son Steven Hammond of Burns, Oregon were pardoned by President Trump in 2018, and allowed to return home after serving more than half of their five year arson sentences for the approximately 140 acres of BLM land they burned in two separate occasions in 2001 and 2006.
Dwight was found guilty of burning one acre of BLM land, when a prescribed burn on private land to reduce overcrowding juniper, spilled over onto the adjoining federally administered land in 2001.
Steven was found guilty of burning that same one acre, plus 139 more acres in 2006, when he lit a back burn to protect the family ranch headquarters when a series of lightning fires was heading toward them. The backfire succeeded in protecting the home quarters.
The Hammond permits total over 26,000 acres; the burned segment amounted to about one half of one percent of the total range the family owns the grazing rights to.
Anti-grazing groups claim in the opening statement of their lawsuit that the two fires set by the Hammonds “resulted in the destruction of important habitat for greater sage-grouse and in the spread of… cheatgrass.”
A range specialist testified under oath that the condition of the rangeland actually improved following the fires.
