Photo courtesy of Paxus Calta.
The man authorities say caused last year’s 227-acre fire, which ripped through a local commune and caused an estimated $1 million in damages, faced charges earlier this summer in Louisa County General District Court for leaving a fire unattended and careless damage to property by fire.
On March 20, 2024, a brush fire from James Grant League, Sr.’s property accelerated into a wildfire that spread north and east, incinerating nearby properties, forests, and structures in its path. The most-affected was Twin Oaks, the nearby egalitarian community that’s one of the oldest, most successful, and well-known communes of its kind in the world. While its residents escaped the blaze unhurt, the same could not be said of their hammock business, which had its manufacturing capabilities and nearly all inventory destroyed.
In September 2024, League, 46, was convicted in Louisa County General District Court of the two charges, which he appealed to Circuit Court. Records show that prior to the Circuit Court trial, League changed his plea to guilty, and in June was given a total of $331 in fines and ordered to pay $51,219.78 to the County of Louisa for fire suppression costs by June 15. None of the restitution would go to Twin Oaks or the nearby properties that were damaged.
Following the verdict, Louisa County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rusty McGuire issued a statement.
“While the convictions carry minimum fines, we are glad the court ordered Mr. League to pay the suppression costs instead of the taxpayers,” he said. “His actions were reckless and caused substantial damage to the neighbors.”
“We hope this case sends a message to the community that the law requires you to monitor brush fire and if you leave [it] unattended you will be held accountable for the damage caused by the fire,” added Megan Riordan, the assistant commonwealth’s attorney on the case.
McGuire says that League failed to make a payment by the June due date, resulting in a judgment filed against him.
Meanwhile, there was almost no part of Twin Oaks left untouched or unchanged by the fire. While Twin Oaks residents declined to publicly discuss the fire, citing the potential for further litigation, Paxus Calta, a resident of Twin Oaks since 1997, has written extensively on his blog about the lessons learned and changes made since the fire.
“The fire changed us,” Calta wrote in a post commemorating the one-year anniversary of the fire. “Members who were formerly taciturn became unusually chatty to help out and share their applicable knowledge. We supported each other in grief and planning for the future.”
Cleanup from fire-damaged structures continued well into the winter. Emerald City, or EC, was the epicenter of Twin Oaks’ decades-old hammock business, and was mostly used as a large warehouse where inventory was packaged and stored. The warehouse was destroyed in the fire. Calta said with the help of volunteers and visitors, however, residents have continued to rebuild and renovate as Twin Oaks has pivoted away from its hammock business toward slip-mold pottery, agriculture, tofu-making, and other new business opportunities.
Keenan Dakota, a Twin Oaks old-schooler who’s been in the commune for 42 years, has, according to Calta, been a large part of leveraging what resources they have into building what they don’t.
“Keenan’s super power is to build things with nothing. For labor, he uses crews mostly comprised of visitors, guests, and kids,” Calta says. “So his labor is ‘free’ in terms of Twin Oaks accounting.”
Twin Oaks also produced a short documentary about the fire, which was released on its newly created YouTube page. The 30-minute film interviews residents who were present during the fire and uses photographs and video footage from the incident and the days that followed.
League was also charged in an animal seizure that took place five months after the fire. His neighbor, Clara Collier, a 77-year-old woman who had more than 500 animals removed from her care in an incident that made national headlines in 2017, resides on a farm next to Twin Oaks and League’s property. Following charges of cruelty to animals, Collier was banned from animal ownership. However, according to the press release from Louisa County, “over 45” animals found their way back onto the property. Sources familiar with the incident say League was the animals’ caregiver, and court records show he was charged in connection to the seizure with four counts of cruelty to animals. Those charges were never prosecuted.
Sarah Rose, a neighbor to the commune whose property was also damaged in the fire, says her life has mostly returned to normal. After the animal seizures last fall, there’s been little in the way of crisis or drama in the area. In fact, Rose says she and her partner were surprised at how quiet their rural neighborhood has been lately.
“I’m shocked to say that there’s been no issues since last fall. My partner and I were just discussing how peaceful it’s been [since the 2024 fire and animal seizures],” she says. “We continue to root for Twin Oaks.”
