FORT COLLINS (AP) — A northern Colorado man who started a house fire that killed one person and injured two others has been sentenced to three years of supervised probation and must complete 300 hours of community service.
The Coloradoan reports 34-year-old Michael Dye was sentenced Friday after previously pleading no contest to criminally negligent homicide.
Prosecutors say he accidentally lit the Fort Collins house on fire while using gasoline to try to ignite wet logs in an indoor fireplace in October 2018. Dye, who was seriously burned, ran upstairs to wake up his girlfriend and get children out of the house. But his friend, Philip A. Baray-Gemaehlich, who was living at the house at the time, died in the blaze.
Dye says “the physical pain is no comparison to the devastation knowing I’m responsible.”
