By Jaclyn O’Malley, Reno Gazette-Journal

For causing an August wildland fire that cost nearly $3 million to fight and destroyed land and structures on public, private and American Indian property, two 15-year-old boys were placed on probation and ordered to work 500 hours of community service.

Judge David Gamble of Douglas County District Court on Tuesday said he was concerned about both boys’ mental health conditions and their drug and marijuana abuse. The pair was not identified because they are juveniles.

Gamble described the boys’ negligence in the Ray May Fire in the mountains south of Carson City as “stupid” and something a “reasonable human” would not have done because of the high risk of danger and damage.

The judge said the incident is proof that both teenagers need a “serious intervention,” adding that he hoped the incident would be an example to all how “fraught with error” even setting a fire can be.

“I want to give them the tools to make decisions so that they don’t end up turning people’s lives upside-down and causing the community to be burned down,” Gamble said of his order of probation.

He said part of the boys’ community service could be helping to build a monument to remember the fire since they would be unable to replant the thousands of acres the fire destroyed. He said the boys definitely would not be “picking up trash” and would have to work to rehabilitate what they damaged.

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