Six warrants, one campfire, eight years: how Gatz’s forest hideout finally ended
A 65-year-old man who had racked up six federal warrants while illegally camping in Arizona's Tonto National Forest for eight years has pleaded guilty to unlawful residency and fire-restriction violations.
When U.S. Forest Service officers walked into a remote stretch of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest on June 25, they found an active wood-burning fire burning in direct violation of Stage 2 fire restrictions then in place. The man responsible, 65-year-old Mark Aaron Gatz, told them he knew the rules but needed the fire to cook food.
By that point, Gatz already had six outstanding federal warrants connected to earlier violations at the same site, according to court records. He has since pleaded guilty to unlawfully residing in the Tonto National Forest and to violating federal fire restrictions.
Officers say the campsite Gatz built had been growing for years. Visitors repeatedly complained about it, prompting multiple inspections over the past year that documented discarded clothing, tools, old tires, plastic bags, aluminum cans, containers of used motor oil and a series of makeshift structures spread across roughly half an acre of public land, totaling an estimated 1,000 pounds of trash.
Court records show Gatz had spent his final two years at that specific campsite, the one where he was eventually arrested, but had lived in the forest’s wider Payson Pine area for closer to eight years overall. Warnings and citations issued during earlier visits did not stop him from continuing to occupy the land.
Federal regulations generally limit camping in national forests to 14 days within any 30-day period, a rule designed to prevent exactly this kind of long-term, unauthorized encampment. Authorities had considered seeking thousands of dollars in restitution for environmental damage, but the final agreement did not require it; Gatz was sentenced to time served and three years of probation.
What remains unclear, even after the guilty plea, is why Gatz chose to stay in the forest for so long. Court documents do not say whether homelessness, personal choice or some other circumstance was behind his extended stay.
Wikimedia Commons/by Toastdebunny
Leave a Reply