Published: March 17, 2009 03:46 pm      

Police: Woman blames cigarette for brush fire

Kanawha County deputies arrested a Bradley woman March 8 after she was accused of starting a brush fire in the Cabin Creek area.

Kanawha County Sheriff’s Deputy B.S. Middleton was dispatched to the Eskdale area of Cabin Creek to investigate a brush fire Sunday, March 8, according to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County Magistrate Court.

Witnesses at the scene told the deputy that the woman who started the fire was in the area, across the creek, the complaint said.

Amy Christine Slater, 41, of Bradley, was identified as being the woman seen throwing brush and other debris onto the fire, the complaint said.

Witnesses say the fire got out of control and started to spread onto a hillside, igniting more than 50 acres of land belonging to Imperial Colliery Company, a coal mining company with offices in Belle, according to the complaint.

Middleton crossed the creek and found Slater crouched down in some brush at the bottom of the hill, near where the fire was still burning, the complaint said. Her hands were black and her boots appeared to be slightly burned with ashes on them, according to the complaint.

Slater later told the deputy she was sorry, the complaint said.

“I was only smoking a cigarette. I did not mean to start a fire,” Slater allegedly told police, according to the complaint.

Division of Forestry crews told Middleton that because of the weather conditions that day, starting a fire of that magnitude with a cigarette was impossible, the complaint said.

Slater was arrested and charged with starting a fire on land belonging to another person. She is being held at South Central Regional Jail.