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Comment by dosman33 | Hacker News Reader

At first blush this looks like the government smiting a flea with a sledge hammer. But it sounds more like there's more to this story. The forest service took the time to track him down on their own which says a lot right there - they literally have bigger fires to deal with, but spent the time to track this guy down to deal with him. Sounds like he was being an active nuisance.

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And as an Extra class license holder he should have known better, which could have influenced the fines as well.

> The forest service took the time to track him down on their own which says a lot right there - they literally have bigger fires to deal with, but spent the time to track this guy down to deal with him.

It says in the article he disclosed his location.

Elk river Idaho is a tiny town surrounded by mountains and wilderness on all four sides, if he was set up with a company banner at the local airfield it was probably very obvious.

The government also took the time (and great expense) to track down J6 attendees who never even entered the capitol, or those who were actually invited in by security, meandered around, and left peaceably.

If the government wants you to be punished, and there's enough spite on the table, guilt or innocence matters little. See: Waco, Ruby Ridge, the FBI urging MLK to kill himself, and countless others that didn't make a lasting splash in the headlines.

Why does it look like that at first?

It's really hard to say without the the factual evidence and everyone in this thread is speculating.A thousand Acre fire isn't that big, less than two square miles. If he was in the proximity, tracking him down might have looking over their shoulder at the radio tower Tower and telling him to knock it off.

The obvious questions are how disruptive was he and what were his intentions. This information is not present.

8 transmissions over two days could be annoying or nothing. Big difference if he's informing them where a trapped family is or is bullshiting wasting airtime

> A thousand Acre fire isn't that big, less than two square miles.

That could have spread to a thousand times the size, resulting in a massive loss of life and assets.

> The obvious questions are how disruptive was he and what were his intentions.

That’s not to point. He clearly knew he shouldn’t do it, and knew (or refused to accept) the reasons why.

The fact is, this kind of behaviour needs to be addressed to avoid interference during a more catastrophic incident in the future. Given the pattern of wild fires in the past few years, is almost certainly a ‘not if but when’ event.

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