A network of patriot groups from across the Northwest issued a call Thursday morning for supporters to flood into Burns.

The request for help came on the heels of the Wednesday night arrest of Jason Patrick, a Georgia roofer who had emerged as a leader among the remaining occupiers of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after the takeover's key planners, including Ammon Bundy and Ryan Payne, were taken into law-enforcement custody.

Bundy, Payne and several others were arrested Tuesday during a traffic stop in which occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum was killed. The deadly confrontation happened as Bundy and the others were on their way to John Day, about 70 miles from Burns, for a community meeting.

Several other people linked to the occupation have since been taken into custody at other locations.

Only a handful of occupiers remained at the bird sanctuary Thursday morning when the Pacific Patriot Network issued its call for support.

The group's members had helped persuade Patrick to leave the refuge, said Joseph Rice, a founding member from Grants Pass.

The FBI had assured them that Patrick would be given safe passage out of the area, Rice said Wednesday night.

He described the FBI taking Patrick into custody at a nearby checkpoint as a betrayal.

On Thursday morning, BJ Soper, a founding member of the group from Redmond, echoed the sentiment on Facebook and called for a dramatic response.

"The events of the last few days in burns have culminated into a lot of massive frustration and anger," Soper wrote.

"The lies and mistrust used to arrest Jason Patrick last night were dirty and caused any trust left in the tank with the fbi to be lost," he said.

Soper called for thousands of people to converge on Burns peacefully to tell the FBI to leave.

"We need not hundreds, but thousands to come here," he wrote. "I am asking for any and all to come."

Soper told The Oregonian/OregonLive that his group is planning a Saturday protest.

He said they will try to maintain public safety. But if the group numbers in the thousands, Soper said, "we can't guarantee anything."

The Pacific Patriots Network opposed the occupation, but has since set up a "buffer zone" around the refuge intended to prevent violence. Its members are largely from Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

The Northwest network's call for help came on top of an earlier invitation from Gary Hunt, a board member of Operation Mutual Defense who is from California.

The other board members of that group, a nationwide network of militias and patriot sympathizers, include Payne and Jon Ritzheimer, an occupation leader who surrendered to law enforcement Tuesday in Arizona.

Hunt's request came shortly after the fatal traffic stop, but he retracted it Thursday morning.

"Based on existing circumstance, support is too late, and would be dangerous, or at least result in your arrest if you attempted to get into the Refuge," Hunt wrote to his followers Thursday.

A majority of the Operation Mutual Defense board voted in October against taking action to support the Burns-area ranchers whose legal woes precipitated the wildlife refuge occupation, Hunt said.

The board came to that decision largely because the ranchers did not invite their help, members and one ex-member said.

-- Kelly House of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Carli Brosseau

cbrosseau@oregonian.com

503-294-5121; @carlibrosseau