Model Rockets Pose Serious Fire Hazard, Officials Say : Safety: The county Fire Department bills a Thousand Oaks church nearly $20,000 after fighting a 35-acre blaze caused by one of the $20 kits.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to build a rocket. A little one, anyway.

For years, kids have been building and launching cardboard and balsa-wood model rockets, powered by special engines that cost as little as $2.50 or as much as $75. Some can fly half a mile into the sky before floating earthward under a parachute. Science instructors often use them to teach physics and chemistry.

But the Thousand Oaks Seventh-day Adventist Church recently learned the hard way that model rockets aren’t toys--and the lesson is costing the church nearly $20,000.

On July 20, students at Camp Conejo, a church-sponsored day camp, launched a model rocket that went wayward, plowed into a hillside and set off a 35-acre brush fire behind the Newbury Park Adventist Academy.

The rocket and its engine sold for less than $20, but the church was billed $19,978.47 by the Ventura County Fire Department for the cost of putting out the fire.

A county fire investigator determined that church officials were negligent because they failed to follow state and county regulations governing model rockets.

They aren’t the only ones. Hobby-shop owners and fire officials say that hardly anyone abides by, or even knows about, the regulations, which require rocketeers to get a county Fire Department permit for every launch. And although fires caused by model rockets are rare, the Adventist academy blaze is a cautionary tale of what can happen when rockets go awry.

“They’re not causing that big a problem, but people ought to be aware that they ought to get a permit before they fire them,” county Assistant Fire Marshal Danny Spykerman said. “Any time they shoot (rockets) off, they are responsible for the consequences of their actions.”

Those consequences can be expensive and even life threatening. Last summer, a 15-year-old boy misfired a model rocket in Chino Hills State Park and touched off a 7,000-acre brush fire. His family was billed $110,000 for extinguishing the blaze.

Also last year, two Orange County teen-agers tampered with a model-rocket engine, which blew up in their faces. They suffered critical burns. One has had five surgeries and $60,000 in medical bills.

California has some of the strictest model-rocket regulations in the country, said Mary Roberts, marketing manager for Estes Industries of Penrose, Colo. Estes is the country’s largest model-rocket manufacturer in an industry that sells about 5 million units a year, Roberts said.

She said California is one of only three states that impose age limits on the purchase of model-rocket engines. Children under the age of 14 are not allowed to buy engines, while those under the age of 18 are allowed to buy only smaller engines designed to lift rockets weighing up to eight ounces.

In Ventura County, rocketeers must apply for a permit from the Fire Department and provide written permission from the property owner involved. The department may require an inspection of the site as well, said James Aaron of the Fire Prevention Bureau.

One hobby-store owner scoffed at the regulations. He said model rockets are safe if used with common sense.

“I know you need a Fire Department permit to have them,” said Marty Friedman, owner of Marty’s Hobbies in Thousand Oaks. “I also know that you or I will cross the street in front of our house and we’re in violation of jaywalking, but everyone does it.

“There are just a couple of safe and sane rules. No way do you want to do it around dry brush or in high winds. It’s just common sense. You don’t strike a match around dry brush,” he said.

Friedman’s views disturb the county’s Bill Hager, who investigated the academy fire.

“For a model-shop owner saying it’s not dangerous and comparing it to jaywalking is ridiculous. If you start a fire with a model rocket on an east-wind day, you’re going to burn a lot of structures down and cause a lot of distress and expense for people,” Hager said.

Model-rocket kits hang on the back wall of Friedman’s store. Most are made by Estes, and they have such names as Big Bertha, Strikefighter and Zinger. There are replicas of the star ship Enterprise and a Klingon battle cruiser. One recent model is a $59.85 replica of a Patriot missile.

Friedman said he informs anyone who asks about the regulations, but he has no signs posted in his store that mention them.

He said the rocket engines, which range in size from of a roll of dimes to that of a roll of quarters, are not dangerous if handled properly.

They are ignited by a small electrical charge from a battery. The most powerful engines burn for two seconds or less; some ignite for as little as one-fifth of a second.

“In 16 years of business, maybe three times I’ve heard of (a fire) happening,” Friedman said. “It’s so hard to do even if you try to do it. If you launched 1,000 times and you tried to start a fire, you couldn’t do it.”

County fire statistics bear him out.

Of the 3,890 fires that county officials have investigated since 1978, model rockets caused only eight, Hager said. Six of those were in Thousand Oaks.

Statewide figures show that the fire danger from model rockets is dwarfed by that caused by fireworks.

In 1989, the latest year for which figures are available, rockets caused 58 fires and $26,550 in damage in California.

The same year, legal and illegal fireworks accounted for 1,302 fires and more than $1.5 million in damage, said Alta Widener of the California Fire Incident Reporting System.

Spykerman said Ventura County authorities issue an average of 12 permits a year, usually to scout troops or school science classes. However, that is believed to represent only a fraction of the rockets launched in the county.

The counselor who organized the model-rocket launch at Camp Conejo didn’t know he needed a permit, Hager wrote in his report on the fire.

The counselor was a college senior who had been left in charge of the camp while an adult supervisor was sick, said Pastor Rob Randall of the Thousand Oaks Seventh-day Adventist Church.

“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” Randall said. “The camp curriculum did not include using rockets.”

The counselor had his class assemble a 26-inch Delta Clipper made by Estes. It is a larger rocket capable of reaching an altitude of half a mile, according to an Estes catalogue.

The counselor launched the rocket from a ridge. Witnesses told Hager that the rocket rose about 10 feet, made a 90-degree turn, then flew across a valley and crashed into the other side. The fire kept crews busy for 5 1/2 hours.

Randall said the Fire Department’s $19,978.47 bill has been forwarded to the church’s insurance company. He added that the fire “was very upsetting for everyone involved.”

The church acknowledges that it bears some responsibility for the fire, Randall said. But he said the regulations should have been better publicized.

“How well-known are these regulations to the people who would fire these rockets? If they’re that dangerous, if there are these regulations, you should think they would tell you when you bought them.”