Terry Barton Released From Jail
DENVER – Terry Lynn Barton has been released from prison after serving a six-year term for starting the worst wildfire in Colorado’s recorded history. Federal prison officials in Fort Worth, Texas, said Barton was released Monday.
Barton, 44, pleaded guilty to arson charges stemming from the 2002 Hayman Fire, which blackened 138,000 acres, destroyed 133 homes and forced more than 8,000 people to evacuate. She was a fire spotter for the U.S. Forest Service at the time and originally claimed she had found an illegal campfire and tried to extinguish it.
She later admitted setting the fire by burning a letter from her estranged husband. She has been ordered to pay $42.2 million in state and federal restitution. Her attorney did not immediately return a call.
