The case for Margaret Pavese, the San Juan Bautista school
teacher charged with starting the Lick fire, remains in the
pretrial stages while attorneys work to reach an agreement on the
amount of restitution she will pay.
The case for Margaret Pavese, the San Juan Bautista school teacher charged with starting the Lick fire, remains in the pretrial stages while attorneys work to reach an agreement on the amount of restitution she will pay.
The case has been put over to September, said Deputy District Attorney Frank Carrubba, while the victims gather receipts and paperwork.
“We didn’t want to have to continue it again and again,” he said. “We’re still working on the numbers.”
About 10:30 a.m. Sept. 2, Pavese started the blaze when she left an illegal and poorly maintained burn barrel full of paper plates unattended for about three hours, according to a CalFire report. The fire escaped the barrel, igniting the dry brush and annual grasses on the nearby hillside.
The Lick fire raged for the next eight days, charring 47,464 acres of Henry Coe State Park and destroying four cabins and 11 outbuildings.
“We’re trying to come to a mutual agreement on what it would take to rebuild the cabins,” Carrubba said. He estimated the dollar amount of the damage to be in the hundreds of thousands range. A significant amount of personal property including a set of valuable writings that were considered antiques were lost in the blaze, he said. Pavese is responsible for making the civilian victims whole by paying the full, agreed upon restitution. The court’s offer, which will probably include a community service component rather than jail time, depends on the victims’ full compensation, Deputy District Attorney Cindy Hendrickson said.
“Any breakdown in that, and all bets are off,” Hendrickson said.
At this point, CalFire has not made a claim against Pavese for the nearly $13 million price tag for fighting the fire, Hendrickson said.
“She’s cooperating completely,” Carrubba said of Pavese.
