Ventura County Bills 2 Teens $480,000 for Starting Fire

Two Ojai teenagers have been slapped with a $480,000 bill by the county to cover its cost of fighting a 4,300-acre brush fire they started last December, and the U.S. Forest Service will probably ask the pair to pay an additional $368,000.

But Brett Schwermer and Jonathan Barrett, both 18, probably will not be asked to repay the greatest portion of the firefighting costs, a bill for an estimated $2.3 million from the California Department of Forestry.

David LeMay, chief deputy for law enforcement of the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said his agency has no plans to pursue reimbursement because it is unrealistic to expect two teenage boys to pay such an enormous debt. It ultimately would cost the agency more money to pursue collection than it is likely to collect, he said.

“We are sitting here with Ventura County asking for about a half a million, we’re well over $2 million, and there’s the Forest Service on top of that,” LeMay said, “And we’re talking about two 18-year-old kids and their families. . . . There’s only so much blood you’ll get from a turnip.”

Schwermer and Barrett, both recent Nordhoff High School graduates, pleaded guilty in June to igniting illegal fireworks that started the fire on the Dec. 21, 1999, along Koenigstein Road in the Upper Ojai.

Nearly 1,600 firefighters from throughout California worked through Christmas to extinguish the flames, at a cost of nearly $3 million. Another $2 million in losses was recorded.