{"id":132385,"date":"2026-01-14T00:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/132385\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T00:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:21:09","slug":"orange-county-seeks-to-dismiss-cal-fires-32-million-claim-for-airport-fire-reimbursement-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/132385\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County seeks to dismiss Cal Fire\u2019s $32 million claim for Airport Fire reimbursement \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orange County has filed a court motion to dismiss Cal Fire\u2019s claim that it is owed $32 million to cover the costs associated with fighting the 2024 Airport fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The state agency\u2019s complaint is \u201cfatally defective\u201d because the specific state laws that allow for the reimbursement of firefighting costs do not apply to the county, the motion, called a demurrer, filed Jan. 12 says.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s attorneys argue the state\u2019s Health and Safety Code \u201cprovides the sole mechanism\u201d for a public agency to recover fire suppression costs in the event that a \u201cperson \u2026 negligently, or in violation of the law, sets a fire, allows a fire to be set.\u201d But state law has established that public entities \u2014 including local governments \u2014 do not qualify as \u201cpersons,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe county is not a \u2018person\u2019 within the meaning of this statutory scheme, and therefore Cal Fire\u2019s claim against the county fails as a matter of law,\u201d the filing said. \u201cFurther, the complaint does not allege affirmative fire-starting actions by the county, only accidental sparks from a front loader that is not designed to create or start a fire.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Cal Fire filed the complaint in Orange County Superior Court against the county and two Public Works employees o<\/a>n Sept. 3 to recover costs related to \u201cfire suppression, investigation, report-making, administrative, accounting and collection,\u201d as well as legal fees.<\/p>\n

The complaint alleges the blaze ignited when the two workers from the Public Works Department were moving boulders in Trabuco Canyon. Despite wind gusts, dry vegetation and extreme heat, the employees failed to use adequate fire suppression equipment or \u201cproperly clear flammable materials\u201d in the vicinity of their work area, according to the court document.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt all relevant times, the county failed to take reasonable precautions necessary to prevent the starting and spreading of fire,\u201d the state agency said in its complaint.<\/p>\n

The county said in its filing this week that, unlike a corporation, a local government is \u201cnot vicariously liable for the alleged actions of its employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Airport fire<\/a> erupted Sept. 9, 2024, in Trabuco Canyon and, over 26 days, razed more than 160 structures and 23,000 acres<\/a> across Orange and Riverside counties. Twenty-two people \u2014 two civilians and 20 firefighters \u2014 were injured and thousands were forced to evacuate.<\/p>\n

Orange County has appropriated nearly $500 million to cover possible payouts to victims of the fire, and as of August\u00a0had paid more than $39 million\u00a0in settlements<\/a> so far.\u00a0Thousands of claim forms have been submitted, though some are duplicates or from multiple people of the same household, so it has been unclear how many final claims there will be.<\/p>\n

The hearing on the demurrer motion is scheduled for June 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County has filed a court motion to dismiss Cal Fire\u2019s claim that it is owed $32 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[5144,163,165,164,7,1071,23,611,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-132385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-airport-fire","9":"tag-anaheim","10":"tag-anaheim-headlines","11":"tag-anaheim-news","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-local-government","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-orange-county","16":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}