Transient ordered to pay $101M for setting fires

LOS ANGELES - November 18, 2008 Fifty-year-old Steven Emory Butcher was convicted in February of starting blazes in the Los Padres National Forest in 2002 and 2006.

The 2006 fire raged for more than a month and cost more than $78 million to suppress. It injured 18 people, destroyed 11 structures and was the fifth-largest fire in California history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The 2002 blaze burned 70 acres.

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