Marine pleads guilty to starting Juliett 2 wildfire

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Marine pleads guilty to starting Juliett 2 wildfire

OCEANSIDE, Calif. – A junior Marine pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to starting a fire he couldn’t stamp out before it got out of hand and eventually merged with another nearby wildfire at Camp Pendleton.

The Marine Corps had charged Lance Cpl. Nason G. Lamb with three counts of reckless endangerment and one count each of damage to military property and making a false official statement in connection with the “Juliett 2” fire, according to I Marine Expeditionary Force.

During a special court-martial at the base, Lamb, of Palmetto, La., testified before the military judge that he used his cigarette to light some grass while he and other Marines with his infantry battalion were participating in a land navigation exercise that day.

“I tried to stamp it out but it wouldn’t go out. It just got out of hand,” he testified, according to a report on the Web site of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The fire was one of two that flared up Oct. 13 in Camp Pendleton’s Juliett training area, in the southern part of the base. The Juliett 1 and Juliett 2 fires burned 4,026 acres of base land and forced the evacuation of several thousand people living in nearby Oceanside and Fallbrook before they were contained four days later.

Under a plea deal, Lamb would spend up to a year in the brig and receive a bad-conduct discharge, the newspaper reported, although the judge hearing the case, Col. Joseph Lisiecki, could issue lesser punishment.

Source: Marine Corps Times - Link

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How fires get their names

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009