A civil trial to determine Xcel Energy’s responsibility for the 2021 Marshall fire and whether the company should pay damages is set to begin Sept. 25 — and attorneys continue to argue over how much blame should be placed on the Twelve Tribes , an international religious cult whose members lit the first embers in Colorado’s most catastrophic wildfire.

Lawyers spent more than six hours Wednesday in a Boulder courtroom arguing over how jurors will be asked to decide fault, whether or not a telecommunications company should be sanctioned for destroying evidence, and whether some blame for the fire can be shifted onto the first responders who allowed Twelve Tribes members to continue burning debris on their property a week before the Marshall fire erupted from smoldering embers.

The tr

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