Cumbres & Toltec will delay the opening of they season until July 1.

Here's the problem with that mentality.

If you absolutely have a confirmed cause, then yes, that approach can be taken. If there is a confirmed/admitted arsonist, or someone who was carelessly burning brush without a permit, go after them. (There have been recent permit burns in Arizona, until the recent fire bans, with piles of tumbleweeds building up over the dry winter and spring the size of a small house.)

Supposing, however, it's an accident. Someone's house caught fire, and the fire spread to the grass. Or someone, who didn't see repeated warnings in the media or elsewhere, accidentally set the grass on fire by parking off the road, and their catalytic converter ignited the grass. They've already lost their house/car, and now you want to go after them further? Hey, how about those utilities whose wires blew loose in a storm and sparked, among others, "the most massive wildfire in California history"?

In my town, just the other day we had a small wildfire (quickly contained), sparked by wind blowing a trampoline into power lines. The owners THOUGHT they had secured it well............. Do we ban trampolines now?

Now, let's look at other wildfires. Sometimes you can tell what sparked them, sometimes not. We recently had a wildfire burn for seven days in my neck of the woods, that started in a basically inaccessible part of rugged mountain territory. No cause has been determined, and probably ever will be determined. That far back, you might as well suggest aliens were zapping lasers from UFOs to start it.
Then let's talk about the largest fire in the USA right now: The Federal government is being blamed, and held accountable, for the Calf Canyon Fire, which merged with the Hermits Peak Fire in New Mexico:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-mexico-w ... ibed-burns

We should note that most government investigations of accidents and events like this (such as the NTSB) do NOT end with the investigators citing specific blame, but rather "probable cause." There are reasons for this.

In the case of last year's lawsuit against the D&S over an earlier fire, we never saw absolute proof that the D&SNGRR started the fire. Instead, it was circumstantial--pretty damning, but still not proven (basically, the D&S was the only artificial intrusion in the vicinity, and no one wants to acknowledge the possibility that anything besides the RR could have caused it). And the civil lawsuits were all about "probable," not criminal convictions.

I'm perfectly fine with going after people or firms when there's absolute proof that they intentionally started such a fire, either as an arsonist or through malicious disregard for public safety. But the mentality you express is either overly simplistic or rises to a punitive and vindictive one in too many instances. And that's a pretty malicious mentality from a societal spectrum that claims to be about "compassion" and "fairness."

That's the reason why courts exist and why there are phrases like "the preponderance of evidence" in civil proceedings.

I'll use with the "parked car on the grass" situation: if someone had seen the reports and disregarded them, then they should be held accountable. If that person hadn't seen the reports, then they shouldn't be.

How do we know if they did or didn't? Well, we don't, because we're not part of a legal proceeding to determine that. But the jury should find out, and if they can't then the parker isn't liable.

The process to get to that determination may not be cheap or easy, but that liability is the cost of living in society, and it's why insurance is such big business.

I'm just going to observe that your zealous pursuit of "reparations" in every possible scenario has now called for the ability to literally read minds--to affirm positively that someone was exposed to information and retained it in their memory, and can thus be invoiced for millions of dollars as a result of having been exposed to said information and not acting appropriately as a result. In spite of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allows one to avoid self-incrimination.

I'll let the utter absurdity of that speak for itself.

Never mind that we already have a criminal justice system that is now equally absurdly empowered through legislation in many jurisdictions to decide whether further criminal prosecution and punishment must be imposed upon an accused criminal based on whether he or she possessed "hate" at the time...............

Determining the truth and assigning liability is one of the thing courts have been doing for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and I assure you that not a single one has successfully used telepathic powers to do so.

If it can be demonstrated that you were aware of a risk, took that risk, and others suffered negative effects because of your choice, you can absolutely be held liable.

Hell, there are plenty of situations where it doesn't even have to be proven that you were aware of the risk you took or the situation you created.

I am certain you are aware of the existence of the Attractive Nuisance doctrine: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/attract ... e_doctrine

You can make whatever claims you want, but in THIS reality, this is the way it works.

I will just point out the other side of this so-called "reality"

In the news making headlines in celebrity news in the past two days:
Johnny Depp. who had earlier had a judgement levied against him on behalf of Amber Heard in a British court, then had a $10 million judgement against Heard levied on his behalf in a U.S. court.

There is outrage--with a great deal of validity--at the recent acquittal of Hillary Clinton's lawyer, Michael Sussmann of charges of lying to the FBI in the "Russian collusion" investigation, despite the evidence that he was working for the Clinton campaign and that he told FBI General Counsel James Baker that he was not working for any client. Plenty of screams of "jury nullification" and "a well-stacked jury" can be found amongst the commentary, if one looks.

Orenthal James Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his wife and her friend in a criminal trial that was widely regarded as ineptly prosecuted. A later civil trial found him liable (as in, "he did it") and awarded a judgment to the victims' parents.

I'm flummoxed anyone even tries to run any passenger railroad anywhere in such a "reality."

So what point are you trying to make here?

In your version of "reality," someone apparently can be prosecuted and found guilty/liable based on what you and/or people with your belief structure believe about them, or believe they must have known or thought, whether or not said belief can be demonstrably proven with certainty.

The same criticism applies to "hate crime" legislation.

The logical extension of that system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

And the further point is that the "justice system" is often a travesty at times--at both extremes.

You literally just described a jury trial.

Twelve people on the jury believe someone did something, either beyond a reasonable doubt or with the preponderance of the presented evidence.

This is fundamentally how our system works.

No, what I described is someone believing something and sticking to that belief no matter what the evidence says or doesn't say.

"Cliff Huxtable was a funny dad on TV. No way he could have sexually assaulted someone!"

"That Johnny Depp looks like a criminal rogue. He's guilty."

"Nobody who sings and dances so well can be guilty of what [Michael Jackson's] accused of!"

Describing what I said as "the jury system" is effectively to say that the likes of the Salem witch trials, or for that matter lynch mobs, did the right thing, because belief is paramount over actual evidence.

The following was posted on June 4th on the Narrow Gauge Discussion Board. The poster "Randy" is the CMO of the Durango & Silverton