A judge has ordered a boy pay $36.6 million for starting the Eagle Creek Fire that burned down the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon last summer.
The boy was 15 at the time. His attorney has called the amount absurd.
The fire burned 48,000 acres. The boy pleaded guilty to all twelve counts filed against him in the case. He also received five years probation and 1,920 hours of community service with the U.S. Forest Service.
The judge wrote in the judgement that he was “satisfied that the restitution ordered in this case bears a sufficient relationship to the gravity of the offenses for which the youth was adjudicated.”
