Bullet-Related Brush Fires Spark Debate

Local fire officials may tighten rules on outdoor shooting ranges after stray bullets set off two major fires that cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

A brush fire last week near Lake Piru and a forest fire in late June at Kings Campground in Los Padres National Forest together scorched more than 3,000 acres. The Piru fire started at a public shooting range, and the Kings fire was sparked by a target-shooter in a legal shooting area.

In the past 10 years, seven brush or forest fires in Ventura County were caused by bullets fired legally or illegally, according to federal and county fire officials.

Despite five of those fires burning less than 10 acres each, authorities say the issue of bullet-sparked blazes is a hot topic of debate. Fire authorities say they don’t want to limit gun owners’ rights, but they want to stop the fires.

“We recognize this is a problem and we are researching ways to prevent this from happening,” said Ventura County Fire Capt. Keith Mashburn, who is considering stricter requirements on clearing vegetation at shooting ranges.

He is also considering asking range owners to inspect ammo being used by shooters and to limit the use of certain types during the hot and dry summer fire season.

Certain inexpensive, lower-quality bullets that contain steel can easily spark a fire if they strike a rock, he said.

Los Padres National Forest spokeswoman Kathy Good said smoldering charcoal, abandoned campfires, sparks from vehicles and lighted cigarettes cause the majority of forest fires, but federal officials still want to step up public education campaigns, particularly through the media, about the dangers of firing weapons during fire season.

“People need to be more aware of how their activities can result in fire,” Good warned.

Forest officials have closed popular shooting areas in surrounding counties where there were repeated problems with ricocheting bullets causing fires or shooters leaving piles of litter riddled with bullet holes.

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An armed man who dressed in a camouflage jacket and used a tree branch he called the “persuader” was acquitted recently of attacking three teens last Halloween who he believed had smashed his jack-o’-lanterns, the man’s defense attorney said. But he was convicted of carrying a concealed knife.

For three years, kids in David McGee’s Westlake Village neighborhood egged his house, soaped his van and squashed his pumpkins on Halloween, said defense attorney Bobby Schwartz.

“Each year he would call police, and each year the kids were gone before police arrived,” Schwartz said.

So when the holiday arrived last year, the 54-year-old McGee staked out his own house with a plan to capture the vandals and call police, Schwartz said.

For three hours, McGee hid in the bushes next to his house and watched children in costumes pass by, Schwartz said.

He laid out a trip wire in the bushes that would jingle aluminum cans that would signal him if a trick-or-treater veered off the footpath leading to the front door where his wife handed out candy, Schwartz said.

By 10 that night, his house was free of vandalism, and the carved gourds he had on display remained untouched, Schwartz said. Moments later when he went inside his home, vandals struck and smashed the pumpkins, Schwartz said.

McGee heard the attack and, carrying a gun and the branch, chased a group of teens outside his house, Schwartz said. During an ensuing confrontation, two girls and a boy, all 13, were struck with fists or a weapon, Schwartz said.

At trial, a prosecutor argued that McGee attacked the kids. Schwartz maintained that his client acted in self-defense. A jury acquitted McGee of two counts of battery, assault with a deadly weapon and brandishing a firearm. He was convicted only on the charge of carrying a concealed knife.

McGee was sentenced last week to three years probation. Schwartz said his client plans to appeal.

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As recently as 1995, Cabrillo Village in southeastern Ventura was a hotbed of gunfire and gang activity.

Its residents, many of whom speak only Spanish, stayed inside their homes because they lived in what they described as a war zone. Thinking they wouldn’t be understood, they rarely called police.

But two years after the villagers banded together to open the Saul Martinez Resource Center--a small office where residents and cops get together--several hundred people gathered Sunday for a party to celebrate a drop in violent crime and to honor the memory of the center’s namesake.

“We’ve heard from residents, and it’s made a difference. The officers got together with the community to solve some problems. Now we have more patrols and more people that are reporting activity,” said Ventura Police Det. Ralph Martinez, who grew up in the village and is the brother of the man for whom the center is named.

The detective said that five years ago officers were dispatched nightly to reports of homicide, gunfire and drunken disturbances. In 1997 there were 92 disturbance calls. So far this year, there have been 35, he said.

There hasn’t been a killing in the village since 1994, and officers now get calls about gunfire only a couple of times a month. In 1997, there were no officers on foot patrol. So far this year, cops have walked the beat 10 times, Martinez said.

There’s still a gang presence, but now the major crimes are graffiti and traffic violations.

Martinez said residents aren’t cowering in fear anymore and don’t hesitate to notify the police of any problems. Village residents made 218 calls for service in 1997. This year, more than 200 calls had already been handled through June 30.

Sunday’s celebration marked the reduction in violent crime and honored Saul Martinez, a California Highway Patrol officer killed in the line of duty during a traffic stop near Palm Springs in May 1997.

During the 1970s, Martinez helped broker a deal that enabled farm laborers to buy the places where they lived.

Residents say this transfer of ownership at Cabrillo Village was the first time in the nation’s history that Mexican American farm workers had bought their homes from a grower.