DC man charged in Gunflint wildfire kills self
A Washington, D.C., man accused of causing one of the most destructive forest fires in Minnesota history has committed suicide, his attorney said Tuesday.
Attorney Mark Larsen said a relative of Stephen Posniak, 64, had told him that Posniak died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Posniak was charged with allowing his campfire to burn out of control in May 2007. The fire spread in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Superior National Forest in Minnesota and into Ontario, burning 118 square miles in Minnesota and Canada and destroying nearly 150 buildings worth more than $10 million. Posniak pleaded not guilty in the case last month.
"I spoke with him yesterday he seemed quite acute in his thinking and quite pleasant over the telephone," Larsen said Tuesday evening. "He was charged with a very serious felony offense for conduct that we would have proven at worst was an accident, and I don't think that helped his outlook."
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The indictment alleged that Posniak started a paper trash fire that spread to nearby timber, underbrush and grass and he left the fire unattended without extinguishing it completely. He was also accused in the indictment of falsely telling U.S. Forest Service officers that he had camped on Cross Bay Lake, not Ham Lake, and that he encountered the fire already burning out of control.
The Ham Lake Fire burned for more than a week and cost around $11 million to put out. The forest fire, rated the most destructive in Minnesota since 1918, damaged or destroyed some 140 structures worth about $4 million on the Minnesota side, according to Forest Service figures, but nobody was killed or seriously injured.
The area was very dear to Posniak, who had visited the area every year at the same time for 20 years, Larsen said.
"He was a kind, gentle 64-year-old former federal employee who found himself on the receiving end of a very serious criminal charge that in our view was an exercise in overcharging by the U.S. attorney," Larsen said.
Posniak is survived by his wife and daughter, he said.
Posniak faced up to five years in prison if he had been found guilty of setting timber afire. The maximum was six months on the two other counts: leaving a fire unattended and unextinguished, and giving false information to a Forest Service officer.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
