Parents of Fire Starters Smoldering Over the Bill

Fireworks, arson and negligence have sparked a rash of wildfires across Ventura County this summer, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to douse.

And the last person who should have to foot that bill is the taxpayer, says Abbe Cohen, budget director for the Ventura County Fire Department.

So when possible, she said, county fire officials trigger a state law that lets them pass the bill on to the people who started the fires.

In most cases, Cohen said, the fire starters are juveniles, and it is their parents who must pay.

But parents and legal experts question whether it is fair to charge them for the actions of children they do not directly control at the time of the fire, or for the work of firefighters already supported by taxpayers.

“I feel it’s the department’s civic duty to take care of that,” said Bruce Kullman of Simi Valley, who is facing a $1,386 bill for a minor fire to which he says his 11-year-old son was only a witness.

Of 19 people who started fires since 1992 for which the Ventura County Fire Department is still actively billing, Cohen said, 17 were juveniles.

While state law requires parents to pay no more than $10,000 for fires started by their children, plenty of Ventura County mothers and fathers could get billed for that full amount, officials say.

The department is now weighing whether to bill parents for a recent spate of costly wildfires allegedly caused by their teen-age children, including the following:

* A rash of arsons between Camarillo and Westlake Village blamed on two Thousand Oaks boys.

* A Simi Valley blaze sparked by a boy trying to smoke a snake out of its hole with a burning stick.

* A 400-acre brush fire touched off by teenagers’ fireworks north of Ventura last weekend that cost $180,000 to put out.

In the 10 years since enactment of California Health and Safety Code Section 13009, Ventura County has billed nearly 100 people for the costs of putting out fires they or their children started by accident or on purpose.

“We’ve collected probably close to $1 million,” said county arson investigator Bill Hager. “We’ve had really good results.”

This is how it works: The department files a legal claim in court against the person believed responsible for starting a fire.

If the person denies responsibility, he or she can fight the bill in court.

Meanwhile, “we have all the tools the court has to offer,” Hager said.

“We can put a levy on their bank account, have the sheriff go to the bank with a writ and take money out of the account,” he said. “If the person has a business and the business is somehow involved, the sheriff can go over and do a ‘till-tap,’ where we collect all the funds from sales at the business that day.”

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The Fire Department collects on 70% to 80% of its bills, but Hager adds, “The [collections] that are unsuccessful are the people who are really down and out. You can’t get blood from a turnip.”

The Ventura city Fire Department also bills juvenile fire starters--or more often their parents--under a city ordinance adopting the nationwide Uniform Fire Code.

This week, the Ventura Fire Department is looking into billing parents for two fires, said Chief Dennis Downs: for a blaze started two weeks ago by fireworks on a roof, and for a blaze ignited recently when a boy smoking a cigarette between two houses flipped the butt up onto a wood-shake roof.

“Most of these fall back on the parents because of the large amounts you’re talking about,” Downs said. “Very, very seldom are you going to see a child or juvenile come up with that kind of money.”

Oxnard passed its own version of California Code Section 13009 in November, hoping to recoup some of its costs from man-made fires, said Oxnard Fire Chief Randy Coggan.

So far, the department has billed about a dozen people for blazes ranging from simple trash fires to full-blown house arson, he said.

“It was felt that it was not fair to the average taxpayer to bear the brunt of suppression costs of fires that were set either deliberately or by gross negligence,” said Coggan, former Ventura County fire chief.

But while fire officials say that parents’ homeowners insurance often pays the cost, legal experts question whether it is fair to penalize parents whose children may not be fully under their control.

“It’s an extension of the victims’ rights movement,” said Southwestern School of Law professor Chris Cameron, a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union for Southern California.

“It appeals to people’s strong sense of justice that there ought to be one-stop shopping when it comes to going to the legal system for redress,” said Cameron, who teaches civil procedure. “What’s wrong about it is that it’s unfair, meaning it violates substantive due process to require someone who didn’t do it to pay for someone else who did.”

Parents question the fairness of another county practice--billing all the families involved for the full cost of a fire when a group of children started it.

Bruce Kullman is facing just such a bill because of his son.

Last summer, 11-year-old Ryan Kullman climbed onto the roof of Sycamore Elementary School, where friends playing with lighters started a small fire in a pile of dead leaves.

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Bruce Kullman and his neighbor put most of it out, then marched the boys over to get a lecture from arriving firefighters “to teach ‘em a lesson.”

But the firefighters passed the families’ names on to the department.

Then the county fire marshal billed each of the three families involved for the full $1,386 cost of the fire, to ensure that at least one would pay the tab.

Kullman says he would gladly have paid a fair share of the cost, but he will go to court to fight the full $1,386 bill.

“I’m sure [Ryan] was wrong in being there, but there was no physical damage to the school,” he said.

“It’s just a standard call out for them [firefighters],” he said. “They came down pretty hard on us for trying to do the right thing.”

But Cohen replies, “I guess the rest of the taxpayers should ask whether the taxpayers should pay for something a child did negligently. This is over and above our normal service.”

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Preventing Fires

* Remove all dead trees, shrubs and branches.

* Plant low-growing vegetation with high moisture content such as flowers and ground cover.

* Remove plant material once it turns yellow.

* Avoid planting evergreen shrubs and trees such as junipers and pines close to the house.

* Keep plants green during fire season. Use supplemental irrigation if necessary.

Source: Ventura Fire Department