>>1279629Here's the breakdown of the bill.
Most of the demands seem to be reasonable ones reflecting the amount of material damage caused or the cost of firefighting operations. It looks like the two hyperinflated numbers, that make up most of the bill, come from the Forest Service and the Department of Transportation.
The Forest Service probably got the number via an arborist's estimate. Believe it or not, a tree that is estimated at 50 years old or so has a ridiculously high material value, very easily in the six digit range, and a tree that's 100 years old might be worth a million or more. I dunno how arborists agreed on those numbers, but that's the value they'll put down on insurance statements and etc. So the forest service probably just had one estimate the total material damages from all the trees that burned down, but considering it burned 50,000 acres 21 million is probably a deliberate low-ball estimate.
As for how the Department of Transportation got their number, there was a shitload of repair work that had to be done on the highways, a shitload of rocks and trees that had to be removed from the highway, and mass inspections on every inch of highway in the area. Dunno if it really cost them 12 million, but I can imagine that if the fire burned for three fucking months non-stop.
