Young Boy + Matches = California Forest Fire

by **FLAK** on Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:14 am

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071031/ap_on_re_us/california_wildfires

Officials blamed a wildfire that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week on a boy playing with matches, and said they would ask a prosecutor to consider the case.

The boy, whose name and age were not released, admitted to sparking the fire on Oct. 21, Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Diane Hecht said Tuesday. Ferocious winds helped it quickly spread.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Deputy Maribel Rizo said prosecutors were yet to determine if the boy's parents would be held accountable for any financial losses caused by the fire. Rizo did not know when prosecutors would be given the case.

Yikes, I'm just a 1 L and Torts isnt my forte but Im pretty sure his parents are vicariously liable for their sons actions and depending on his age he might have to do a bit of community service. They're going to have their hands full with this one as will their insurance companies, any of the full fledge lawyers out there wanna take a stab at this one? How much of California has been affected by this fire?

**Sponsor**

by **Sonny** on Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:14 am

I thought Harry Reid said Global Warming was to blame.

by **cjwilhelmi** on Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:28 am

The Daily Show last night showed clips of different broadcast companies on who started the fires. One was global warming, another was Bush and the last one was terrorists.

I'll see if I can find a clip of it.

by **Steno** on Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:56 am

I hope you guys are just pretending to be dense here, but it's pretty obvious they meant that global warming helped the fire spread because of abnormal weather conditions. that, teamed with poor public and private land management.

by **OAKS** on Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:59 am

cjwilhelmi wrote:The Daily Show last night showed clips of different broadcast companies on who started the fires. One was global warming, another was Bush and the last one was terrorists.

I'll see if I can find a clip of it.

Fox was the one saying it was Al Qaeda - big surprise there.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Px_mEucuaw[/youtube]

by **sohotrightnow** on Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:23 pm

I thought illegal immigrants were responsible?

by **Dan Wishengrad** on Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:41 pm

Keith Olberman did some great shtick making fun of the FOX-Noise channel's morning team releasing their "smoking gun" memo showing Al-Qaeda's plot to start Southern California wildfires. He played clips of the "fair and balanced" team saying that the timing of the memo so closely before the fires was strong evidence that this might be an act of terrorism. KO had great fun discounting the fear-mongerers, though, by pointing out that the memo stated this would happen during the summer, and (more imprtantly) that the memo was not recent but actually came from 2003!

I love channel-surfing the cable news companies whenever any story breaks that casts the GOP in a negative light, like the day the conviction of Scooter Libby broke. That day FAUX-news granted the story about thirty seconds and then spent hours and hours on the continuing search for Natalee Holoway, who had gone missing on Aruba two years' before. Kinda reminded me of the old SNL "Weekend Update" bit: "Our top story -- Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead...."

by **Zeuslax** on Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:37 pm

This type of blamming was going on in Greece for years, where wild fires are prevalent. They blammed the Turks, terrorists and everything and everybody else. What they found was a bunch of people (other Greeks) lighting fires so they could develop land. Pure greed!

by **UofMLaxGoalie11** on Thu Nov 01, 2007 12:36 am

I'm sure it has everything to do with global warming and nothing to do with the fact that we are experiencing a la nina. Making everything on the west coast drier. Lets blame it on SUVs instead of a (as far as we know) random global event.

by **FLAK** on Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:38 am

We could just blame it on the kid and his parents who were negligent in keeping track of their son and allowing him to have matches and start this fire in the first place and discuss the ramifications of a single childs actions and how a somewhat innocent adolescent act has impacted millions of people...

or we can continue to bicker back and forth like 70 year old men on a porch and argue over what news channel said what and not get anywhere in a discussion.... :roll:

by **Beta** on Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:08 am

I thought I read that he started ONE of the fires...there were several.