Sylvan Crackdown

U.S. Magistrate Volney V. Brown Jr. has issued arrest warrants for 25 people who failed to appear in court for fire-related citations handed out last month in the Angeles National Forest. Good for him.

Brown has the right attitude toward fire prevention: a serious one. He ordered the arrests because he felt that the violations threatened wildlife and foliage in the San Gabriel Mountains, and that if he allowed anyone to get away with skipping his fine he was diminishing the effectiveness of important regulations.

Fire conditions have received little attention since the rash of terribly destructive and tragic blazes earlier in the summer. Yet the Angeles National Forest has never been drier than it is now. Brown’s decision reminds us of that and, more important, warns us to be careful in any potentially flammable landscape. Forest Service officials are understandably delighted with Brown’s action, and hope that other magistrates and judges throughout California will follow suit--especially with the traditionally worst part of the fire season yet to come.

Brown realizes that it doesn’t take much to start a blaze like the one that charred more than 100,000 acres in Ojai in June. He wants the 25 non-payers arrested for offenses as seemingly innocuous as operating vehicles without spark arresters and illegally possessing fireworks. But unarrested sparks are just as dangerous as unarrested arsonists.