Fire-Ravaged Farmers Upset by Claim Delays
When Alex Rigopolous purchased 35 acres in this lush rural pocket northeast of Fallbrook 11 years ago, his past and future merged.
The steep, rocky hillsides and fertile valleys evoked fond memories of Mavriki, the tiny Greek village where Rigopolous was raised, and the 1,200 avocado and citrus trees he planted represented his ticket to a comfortable retirement.
His goal? To sell enough fruit to enable him and his wife to build a hilltop ranch house and live out their years amid the thick, healthy groves.
Then last July, a fire caused by artillery shelling on nearby Camp Pendleton roared through De Luz and devoured Rigopolous’ dream. Flames seared through the trees’ tender fruit and turned their bright green foliage to ash. Irrigation pipes melted in the intense heat. Water pumps and electrical systems were ruined. Total damages, including crop losses during the seven years it will take new trees to reach peak production, came to nearly $450,000.
“This place, it was my joy and pride, it was my future,” Rigopolous, a self-employed insurance man, said last week as he wandered through the charred groves. “And now, it hurts me to look at it.”
Last fall, Rigopolous and a dozen neighboring landowners hit by the fire sought restitution for their losses from the Department of the Navy, filing claims totaling $2.5 million. But the Navy has yet to pay up, and the growers, most of them broke because of their heavy crop losses, say the delay may cost them yet another year of production.
Further, if the heavy rains persist, erosion problems on the sloping, fire-ravaged land could do untold damage and set the farmers back still further.
“Now is the season to replant, but without the money to replace the irrigation pipes, to fix the electrical system, to buy new plants, we cannot proceed,” said Rigopolous, 56. “There is no reason to make us suffer any longer. They made a mistake, they should fix it and let us rebuild.”
Under federal law, the Navy must pay or reject the growers’ claims within six months after they are filed. The claims were filed in October and then adjusted in January to reflect the increase in the price of avocados, said attorney Cary Thompson, whose parents’ grove was destroyed in the fire.
Lt. Thomas Palmer, federal torts claims officer at the Naval Legal Services Office in San Diego, said the Navy has no quarrel with the substance of the growers’ claims and has every intention of settling “at the earliest possible moment.” The delay has been caused by the Navy’s inability to locate an expert to evaluate the growers’ claims, he said.
“There aren’t many people around with the expertise to tell you the fair market value of an avocado tree,” Palmer said. “Now we’ve got an expert. And once his information is in our hands, we’ll forward it to Washington. From there, it shouldn’t take too awfully long.”
Palmer said he could not estimate when the claims would be met or whether the growers would receive full payment. But he noted that the matter is a “top priority” in his department.
Some growers are skeptical. And desperate.
Roger Milner had losses totaling $173,000 in the fire and is now facing default on a Small Business Administration loan on his 40-acre De Luz property, where he grows Oriental persimmons and avocados.
“They’ve deferred my loan but they just can’t defer any more unless they see a cash flow,” said Milner, a Fallbrook area farmer and grove manager since 1972. “They’re talking default. So at 49, I stand to lose everything I’ve worked for all my life. It’s frightening.”
In addition, Milner has been unable to borrow money to replant and take measures against erosion; despite his assets, banks are hesitant because of the grower’s crop losses last year and gloomy forecast for 1986.
“We should have taken preventive measures against erosion two months ago, but we’re broke,” Milner said. “If we get one torrential downpour for 10 minutes, we’ll lose thousands of yards of topsoil.”
Should that occur, the growers would have to get new damage appraisals and refile revised, higher claims with the Navy. That would mean more delays and the threat of still more losses.
“It’s like an inverted pyramid of problems that is getting very shaky,” Milner said. “This thing is sitting on someone’s desk somewhere. And the longer they drag it out, the more expensive it gets for everyone involved.”
Rigopolous won’t soon forget July 2, 1985. Braving 105-degree weather, he and a few friends set out for a barbecue on his De Luz property, which commands sweeping views west through the Santa Margarita River Valley and east over rolling hills speckled with avocado groves.
“We heard there was a fire in the area, but we thought it was just a small thing,” Rigopolous recalled. “Then, as we got closer, I saw my joy and pride burning up. Soon, the three of us were all crying like babies. I’m glad my friends were there.”
By the time firefighters defeated the blaze two days later, it had burned more than 8,400 acres on and off Camp Pendleton, destroying, among other things, two homes and a world-renowned cactus nursery. A Marine Corps investigation found the fire was started by shelling during routine exercises.
Today, the normally green De Luz canyon is an eerie sight, pockmarked by fields of dead trees that resemble multilimbed black skeletons. Burned irrigation pipes crisscross the steep hillsides, and the smell of ash hangs faintly in the air.
Growers recall the fire, not the first to result from exploding ammunition, bitterly.
“It was just plain stupid for them to be out there shooting up the land in 110-degree weather and high winds,” Rigopolous said. “There is no excuse for it. It is preposterous that with all the military equipment we have to send us to war that they can’t even contain a simple fire.”
Milner agreed, and said that while De Luz growers don’t much mind the distant roar of gunfire or the whir of military helicopters circling overhead, the fire and the payment delays have made for some hard feelings between the base and the farming community.
“In the past, I’ve felt (Camp Pendleton) has been an asset to Fallbrook,” Milner said. “However, if the lackadaisical and seemingly insensitive manner in which they’ve handled this situation is any indication of how they feel about Fallbrook in general, then they’re going to lose a lot of future support.”
At the very least, Rigopolous figures he’s been set back seven years. First, the irrigation and electrical pumping systems must be replaced; then the dead avocado, orange and lemon trees--which just this year had reached full maturity--must be bulldozed and new ones planted. Then he must wait for five years while the trees grow to a productive age.
“I will do it because all my pleasure and ambition is with the land,” said Rigopolous, who visits his property to prune and inspect some surviving trees twice a week. “But we cannot wait forever to be repaid. We need to get on with our lives.”
