Minnesota man faces a $15,000 bill after his blown tire started a wildfire

Scott Rodgers was almost home — a mile or less away — last May when a tire on his truck blew out. He later learned that the wheel bearing most likely locked on the front passenger side, causing an enormous amount of friction that turned to heat, which burned through the rubber of the tire until it exploded off the rim.

His two kids were in the back seat. He was able to pull the truck into the front of his driveway, get his kids out and use a garden hose to smother a fire that was smoldering from where the tire had been up into the engine and through the truck's hood, dashboard and windshield.

But it was too late. With the landscape dry from drought, sparks from the blown tire ignited a wildfire that grew from the side of the road to about 32 acres near Sebeka, Minn., in Wadena County. Now, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is demanding that Rodgers pay $15,000, saying he is responsible for the cost incurred by state firefighters to put out the fire.

"This was a complete accident," Rodgers said when reached by phone. "This wasn't an intentional fire or anything like that."

Firefighters talked to Rodgers in his driveway that day, after they had started to get the fire under control. He was a mailed a $190 fine a few weeks later, saying he had been careless and negligent for driving a mile after the tire blew.

Rodgers didn't fight the ticket, thinking that was the end of it. He said he didn't learn the DNR also wanted $15,000 until last week, when the bill was sent to collections and he heard from a bankruptcy lawyer.

While equipment failures and car troubles do periodically cause fires on roadsides during dry years, it is rare for the state to seek damages. Under state law, anyone responsible for starting a wildfire through carelessness or negligence is on the hook for paying the cost of putting it out.

The fact that Rodgers kept driving after the tire blew out is likely what tipped the scale into negligence, said Jon Handrick, forestry enforcement officer for the DNR.

"These kinds of fires are generally caused by things like bad bearings on a trailer," he said. "It's somewhat unique to have a tire on the vehicle, itself, blow out and a driver dragging his own rim. At that point it's not an unknown issue. If you know your tire is out and there is an issue and it's sparking and you continue on, that's when it jumps to negligence."

The DNR officer who wrote the ticket back in May said that Rodgers drove for "one mile" with sparks flying from the rim of his blown-out tire.

Rodgers said that's not true. He was less than a half-mile from home and had no idea that there were sparks coming from his car, he said.

"Maybe if it was a back tire I would have seen something in the mirror," he said. "But I never saw sparks or anything like that. It would have been impossible for me to see sparks coming from the front passenger side. I was right by my driveway and had my kids in the truck."

The wildfire was extinguished by the following day, Handrick said.

While it never grew to more than 32 acres, the cost was so high because the area was extremely dry at the time and firefighters needed to use aircraft to keep the flames from spreading, he said.

"At that time of year there was such a strong spread potential that we needed to keep it in check before it got any bigger," Handrick said.

Rodgers said he isn't sure what his next step will be. He said he hopes he will be able to fight the bill in court or plead his case in some other way.