Couple Sue Boys’ Home, County Over ’93 Brush Fire : Courts: Victims who lost house seek $1.5 million. They say youths accused of setting blaze were not supervised.

A couple who lost their home in brush fires that swept the Antelope Valley last summer filed suit Wednesday against the county and a private facility that had custody of four young boys accused of starting the blaze.

Severino and Estrella Fernando asked for $1.5 million in damages from the county and Walden Environment in Lancaster, a home for boys who are wards of the court, in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The Fernandos allege that the boys--one 10 years old, two 9 and one 8--ignited the fire while smoking and playing with matches July 15, 1993. Flames from the blaze consumed 2,102 acres of brush, destroying two homes, several barns and seven cars.

Jim Rhodes, director of Walden Environment, declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.

The Fernandos contend in their lawsuit that they lost a house they owned in the 44000 block of North 80th Street West in Lancaster, a chicken farm, and farming equipment located on the lot.

Severino Fernando, who now lives in Pomona, said in an interview Wednesday that he purchased the property in 1979 and then sold it in 1989 to a buyer who was unable to make the mortgage payments. As a result, he said, he reclaimed ownership of the property June 10, 1993. A little more than a month later, the fire broke out. “Everything was burned,” Fernando said.

The lawsuit accuses the children’s home and the county of general negligence, negligent supervision and other allegations.

The couple contend in their lawsuit that Walden Environment failed to maintain its property in a safe and proper condition and also failed to properly supervise the four boys, who the facility should have known would use cigarettes and matches.

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The suit also alleges that the county had an obligation to evaluate Walden Environment’s ability to supervise the youths and establish and enforce guidelines that would have restricted the boys’ conduct, and thus prevented the blaze.

Four water-dropping helicopters, two bulldozers and 300 firefighters, including prison inmates, fought the fire last July, one of a series of human-caused fires that blackened thousands of acres in the Antelope Valley in 1993.

The boys were booked on arson charges and returned to Walden Environment, authorities reported at the time of the incident. It could not be determined Wednesday whether any of the boys were convicted of the charges.