A 63-year-old man has been accused of starting a destructive wildfire in Colorado while he was trying to cremate his pet.
Brent Scott Garber was accused of arson and trespassing after police officers said he started the Bucktail Fire on August 1.
The fire, which ignited about 350 miles west of Denver, destroyed more than 7,200 acres of private and national forest land.
Garber was first seen by cops on the scene, driving away from the fire minutes after it was reported.
A dug-out cave with a partially burned body of a dog was then found at the fire’s starting point.
Officers also reported uncovering a large rock with the words ‘Oct. 2017 July 2024, Rocket Dog, Rest in Peace Buddy’ carved into it.
Garber’s dog Rocket was euthanised by officials in Nucla, Colorado, after a judge’s order when he got involved in a fight with another dog, USA today reported.
The 63-year-old lived in a camper van by the fire’s origin point, and witnesses told investigators he accidentally started the fire when a spray can he thew into a pit blew up and lit a tree on fire.
Garber put his pet in the pit with wood, and lit it on fire before throwing the spray can into the flames, the affidavit claimed.
Witnesses told investigators Garber was ‘really down’ but ‘did not put the blame anywhere else and knew his fault’.
The Bucktail Fire was one of the largest wildfires in Colorado this year, causing more than $200,000 in damages.
The US has seen a number of wildfires this year.
In California, a man was arrested on suspicion of arson when he pushed a car on fire into Bidwell Park, on the outskirts of Chico city.
The blaze, which was named Park Fire, escalated dramatically and burned around 120,000 acres of land, with 1,150 firefighters deployed to tackle it and over 3,500 people evacuated.
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