How about considering the danger that starting that fire and walking away from it stands to expose other people to? Maybe we look at things differently, but saving my own life is not worth risking the lives of a bunch of firefighters or regular folks.
Particularly not if I'm almost wholly to blame for being at risk because of my own spectacular level of stupidity.
The monetary cost of a mere $300,000 is a very poor proxy for putting the risk back on the shoulders of the person it rightly belongs on.
Or why even leave the house and participate in any activity if there are lifelong legal risks to everything?
We might as well require every living person to carry multimillion dollar personal liability insurance so the government can actually get their $300k. Isn't that the same logic they use with calls for gun liability insurance? Ensure money is paid as well as make "risky" (unwanted) activities cost prohibitive thereby reducing participation.
The real problem here was how he set the fire. But the case sure does focus on a lot of other stuff.
There aren't many things an average human can do that is quite as destructive as causing a 200 acre forest fire. I'm really trying to figure out anything that could cause that much widespread damage, but nothing is coming up.
The case focuses on other stuff because it adds to the recklessness charge. He started a massive forest fire because he got into a bad situation because of recklessness.
The damages are only $300k. It's very easy to cause that much damage or more doing a bunch of things, like injuring or killing someone, buring down a house or business, etc.
I'm not convinced he was reckless in going hiking. He was reckless in how he set the fire. That was the main part of my comment - that almost anyone who needs to be rescued could be found to be reckless or negligent based on the armchair logic that because I would have packed X and you didn't, that makes you reckless. You had a heart attack and had to be flown out of the backcountry. Guess you're reckless for not packing an AED... etc
If it were really so simple to know what you needed, there would be codified equipment requirements for use of public land based on your intended activity. Yet even the private lists of what to being vary wildly.
I'm sure that the same people who start illegal fires in panic in forests are the same people who are in shape enough to attempt to outrun the forest fire they started.
Particularly not if I'm almost wholly to blame for being at risk because of my own spectacular level of stupidity.
The monetary cost of a mere $300,000 is a very poor proxy for putting the risk back on the shoulders of the person it rightly belongs on.