We have a Burn Ban in place in our County. Yesterday a resident asked the Sheriff if he could do a controlled burn. He was told no - we are under a total burn ban. So he went to the Fire Chief and asked him and got the same answer. Then he went out to his field and did the burn anyway. The Sheriff wrote two tickets for violating the burn ban which one of them happily paid already the $350 fine set by the JP because he said it was worth it- they needed to do the burn. Now people are complaining because the hot spots are burning again and if it gets any worse our volunteer fire dept. may have to go out. Any ideas on what to do? Can they be ordered to pay restitution for the expense of the fire dept. having to go out? One of the men has already paid the ticket from yesterday so it's too late to order restitution on that one, but maybe we can on the other one?

[This message was edited by S Elliott on 02-04-09 at .]

I had this come up in the past and the office I was in at the time decided that it wasn't right to charge a citizen for the fire department to do what they are there to do--but come to think of it, DPS gets paid restitution when they test evidence, so I don't know why the fire dept. couldn't be considered a victim. Especially in your case when it's willful rather than an accident.

The question is, though, what if he doesn't pay? The commitment statute for JP court only allows you to pick him up for failure to pay court costs and fines, and the same for the civil collection route.