State snuffs artist's fire: Palouse man prohibited from burning wooden mammoth

After hours of screwing boards together, a few painful slivers and collaboration with community groups throughout Palouse to build a 15-by15-foot mammoth, all Thad Froio wanted to do is stand back and watch his artwork burn.

Despite this urge to set his creation aflame, the wooden skeleton of Froio's mammoth still stands unsinged in downtown Palouse.

"I'm just too small for how big that idea was, I think," Froio said.

It wasn't rain or weather that put out Froio's fire, it was the Washington State Department of Ecology, which doesn't permit the burning of milled "non-virgin" wood.

"You can't burn construction and demolition debris, just natural unprocessed materials," said Randall Ruddick, a department environmental specialist. "Burning prohibited materials we consider pretty serious because (those laws were) written to protect public health."

The department called Froio near the end of April, just as he finished the mammoth skeleton, to tell him he could be penalized up to $10,000 a day for burning the mill-processed untreated wood that comprises his mammoth.

The department told Froio they received a copy of a newspaper article from an anonymous sender outlining his intent to ignite his wooden beast.

"We did call in a pre-emptive measure because we much

fer to prevent pollution instead of levying fines," Ruddick said. "We like to keep people from breaking the law."

Froio's mammoth bonfire wasn't just for himself, he said.

Froio envisioned the mammoth fire as a celebration in downtown Palouse to draw attention and support for the ground breaking of the long-awaited community center.

Froio intended to have live music and hamburgers and hotdogs from the Lions Club for the all-day event.

Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove said Froio's idea was inspiring.

"Thad is a very, very creative young man, and he's part of the wonderful artistic presence that's in Palouse," he said.

His first prehistoric creature bonfire was in 2010 when Froio ignited a 15-foot tyrannosaurus rex he dubbed Palouse-o-saurus. The event drew a few hundred community members to a landing strip outside Palouse.

"It's such a shame because it's an event to bring the whole community together," Froio said of the mammoth fire. "I didn't want to step on anyone's toes."

Now, with the state nixing the fire, Froio said he's lost the drive to complete the mammoth. Instead he's taking suggestions for legal ways to deconstruct the creation.

"Some people suggested driving through it with a car," he said.

Moving a mammoth, even if it is made out of wood, is just too difficult and the structure isn't sound enough to leave as a community sculpture.

The festival is also out of the question.

"The burning was what was exciting," Froio said. "So if you eliminate the exciting aspect around (the festival) all it would be is just people hanging out in a field."

Though Froio feels let down, he's already concocting plans for the next prehistoric creature bonfire in Idaho where such fires are legal.

"This isn't going to dishearten me from doing stuff like this again," he said. "Because it's just too damn cool."

To view a documentary of Froio and his friends building the mammoth, visit www.vimeo.com/24029897

Sarah Mason can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 234, or by email to smason@dnews.com.