A former Utah Highway Patrol trooper was sentenced to 6 months in the Uintah County jail Tuesday for starting a 1,000-acre fire last year near the town of Maeser.
As part of his sentence, Rex Richard Olsen, 38, will be on probation for three years.
Olsen said he started the fire “because he wanted to feel the excitement of it,” according to court papers. Olsen was originally charged by the Utah Attorney General’s Office with arson, a second-degree felony, and with a violation of wildland fire prevention, a class B misdemeanor.
This week, he was sentenced in 8th District Court in Vernal by Judge Clark McClellan.