Ordway feels sorry for rancher responsible for fire

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 22, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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In a small town, everyone knows your name.

And in Ordway, pop. 1100, everyone knows that Sam Martson's ranch is where the remnants of a previous trash burn caught an ember in the hot, roaring winds last Tuesday and set their town on fire.

Two firefighters died and 24 homes were destroyed in the flames. On Saturday, the whole town held a heart-rending memorial service.

By Monday, word had spread on which neighbor was to blame - even though local newspaper editor Susan Pieper didn't print his name, because the fire seemed to be unintentional.

"They feel sorry for the guy," she said.

District Attorney Rodney Fouracre, based in La Junta, said it is too soon to know if any charges will be filed. Most of the arson statutes require a fire to be set "knowingly" or "intentionally," DA Fouracre said. Misdemeanor arson can be a fire set "recklessly."

Around Ordway, anger and shock have been heavily leavened with sympathy for the Martsons, and guilty understanding by many others that they might have done the same thing.

In the days before the firestorm that swept through 14 square miles in hours, farmers and ranchers all over Crowley County had been setting fire to weed-filled irrigation ditches in an annual spring rite.

They needed to clean them out before Tuesday, when the ditchrider was scheduled to open the headgates and let the life-giving water flow to the farms for the first time this spring. Because high winds are common, they'd had to stop several times in recent weeks because of the fire danger. It was fine for burning on Monday.

But on Tuesday, hellacious winds flared to 50-60 mph, and in two places in the county, embers from those controlled burns flared into flames.

Martson's wife, Michelle, did not answer questions Monday.

She had admitted her husband's responsibility to a television reporter, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation gave the couple's address for the origin of the blaze.

Jenny Montanez, who lost her home in the fire, knows Martson as a fine, religious man, who must be having a hard time dealing with what happened.

"To me, he's a very hard-working, nice man," she said. "I bet he feels awful."

Robert Pinar also lost his home, but he hasn't sorted out his feelings yet about the neighbor who started it.

"I can't give you a definite answer," he said.

Then he added, "If it was a controlled burn, it should have been out already."

Crowley County Commissioner Matt Heimerich was one of the ranchers burning ditches on the weekend before the firestorm.

A second, smaller fire of 20 to 80 acres that sprang up five miles west of the main fire "could have been in the vicinity of where my neighbor and I worked all weekend," he admitted.

Colorado Bureau of Investigation officials have given only a rough location for the start of the second fire, but said that it, too, had been a controlled burn in the days before Tuesday's vicious winds rekindled it.

Heimerich said he doesn't know for certain whether the smaller grass fire came from his own ditch burning. He said he and his neighbor had plowed a small fire line and sprayed down the embers with a borrowed firetruck.

"It's a little dicey, to tell you the truth," he said about not knowing.

imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438

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