- NEW YORK -- The US government
and Utah state are suing the Boy Scouts of America for almost $14m damages
for a troop's failure to follow one of the movement's most hallowed rules:
putting out the campfire.
-
- The mistake, the suit alleges, began a fire which spread
across more than 5,600 hectares (14,000 acres) of forest in Utah, forced
the evacuation of camp sites and holiday homes, and took more than 1,100
firefighters to bring under control.
-
- It says that 20 scouts aged between 11 and 14 were left
under the supervision of two 15-year-olds in a forested area of the Uinta
Mountains in June 2002.
-
- The boys were spending the night in improvised shelters
to earn survival badges. For protracted periods they were left entirely
unsupervised, the suit says.
-
- The Utah attorney's office says they built several fires
on a thick layer of "duff" - dead and decaying woodland debris
- and left them smouldering the next morning. Earlier that month the state
had banned open fires for the duration of the summer.
-
- Utah law requires people who start bush fires to pay
the cost of putting them out.
-
- Paul Warner, the US attorney for the state, said the
claim was for $13.3m (£7.3m) for the federal costs of fighting the
fire and reclaiming scorched land and $600,000 for costs of the local fire
services.
-
- "Everyone thinks the Boy Scouts are a wonderful
organisation, but it doesn't exempt them from responsibility for negligent
acts," the state attorney's office told the Salt Lake Tribune.
-
- The scouts deny responsibility. Their lawyer, Rob Wallace,
said there were unanswered questions about how the fire began and it was
possible that people using all-terrain vehicles were to blame.
-
- The federal attorney's office says none was reported
in the area at the time.
-
- "We have done everything possible to try and settle
this matter," the Utah attorney general's office said.
-
-
- "This is simply the last resort to make sure taxpayers
are not left with the bill."
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1251149,00.html
|
