Corral Fire Victims Want State Held Liable
for Their Losses
• Litigation Alleging Public Agency
Negligence Will Be Pursued If Filed Claims Are Not Paid
Some of the victims of last
November’s Corral Fire trekked back up the mountain for a
press conference a week ago where the former residents pointed
fingers at the state Department of Parks and
Recreation, and their attorney threatened litigation
unless the state paid claims filed by the victims.
“Who is responsible for these recent
fires? The state of California is,” said Carol Sue
Stoddard, who challenged the state to “step up and
do something about this issue.”
Speaking before a phalanx of reporters
and broadcast equipment crews, Stoddard said for years she had
witnessed young people having fires and parties at the end of
the road before and even after the November fire.
“OK, so the state put up a few signs,
but these signs are not enough. Most people don’t read
the signs, and you can’t even see them at night,”
she added.
Another resident who lost his home, Scott
Palamar, who has lived in the area for nine years, said
he had been in contact with State Parks personnel before and
after the fire, but had still not received either an adequate
explanation, or a promise that a solution is in store.
“Now, after an estimated 100 million
dollars in property damage and firefighting costs, and untold
losses to the animal life and once cherished landscape of
Corral Canyon, who has the funds to pick up the tab? In my
darkest moment, I have said that I wish I had spent my time
renegotiating my insurance policy rather than trying to
convince the government to take responsibility for our
safety,” he said.
“People have asked me how I feel
about the apparent perpetrators of this atrocious crime. My
answer is that they were actors on a stage set by the State of
California. If it wasn’t this group who started a fire
from the cave on a dry windy unpatrolled weekend night, it
would have been some other careless or malicious
parties.”
Another victim, Paul Grisanti, explained he
had already filed a claim with the state and said he likened it
to the kind of action any neighbor would take against a
negligent neighbor who caused harm to another person’s
property.
In documents obtained by The News, Grisanti
filed a $3 million claim against the state. The claim includes
the market value of his residential home destroyed by the fire,
as well as personal property loss and incidental expenses
related to the loss.
The claimants’ attorney James Devitt
said the fire was totally preventable. “The cave should
have a locking gate installed, and the state could have also
put a gate down the road a half mile from the caves, preventing
cars from even going up there. The cost of these preventative
steps was minimal when compared with the $100 million in
property damage and the loss to the fire victims of their
family pets, photographs, heirlooms and other cherished
possessions,” he said.
After the press conference, some of the
victims accompanied their attorney and members of the press on
a walk along the ridgetop route to the cave to see where
the devastating wildfire started.
Known as the “Rave Cave”
visitors could see the massive rock defaced by graffiti where,
in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday Nov. 24, partygoers during a
period of high fire danger and a red flag alert weekend with
strong, dry Santa Ana winds blowing, built a fire that went out
of control. Flames were pushed by the powerful winds toward the
sea, and destroyed nearly five dozen homes and consumed
thousands of acres of brush.
One victim put it succinctly when she said
she had been through fires in the many years living in Malibu,
but never knew what it was like until she and her family lost
their home.
