Demolition firm sued over Bullards Fire
The man who shot a burning flare across the Yuba River and started the Bullards Bar Fire in the Sierra foothills was acting outside his employment with the Midwest Demolition Co., according to a representative of the Nebraska company sued by CalFire for $3.6 million in fire costs.
John Zapata, who is semi-retired from the demolition company that his daughter is president of, said the state fire agency developed the idea of two fires in 2010 at Bullards Bar when 1,307 acres burned after company foreman Christopher J. Martin shot the flare.
“They had to come up with this wild-ass two-fire theory,” Zapata said Tuesday. “It’s all about money.”
The double fires allows the state to sue Midwest Demolition, which the US Geological Survey contracted with to dismantle a gauging station about a mile downstream from the Bullards Bar Dam, Zapata said.
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