5. Johnny Cash started a forest fire which burned 508 acres of California woodlands
In June 1965, while on a fishing trip with Damon Fielder in Los Podres National Forest, Cash started a fire which eventually burned more than five hundred acres and which he claimed was an accident, caused by a defective muffler on his camper truck. Fielder, Cash’s nephew, later said he believed the cause was a camp fire which Cash was too drunk or drugged to realize was out of control. In court Cash claimed that he tried to extinguish the fire by beating out the flames with his jacket, but that it spread too quickly for him to contain. Although there were claims that up to four dozen endangered California condors were killed in the fire, the US Fish and Wildlife Service denied any of the birds were lost to the flames, though they may have been driven away.
Cash was prosecuted for starting the fire and was sued by the federal government to recover the cost of fighting the fire, which was covered by his insurance companies. He claimed to have been fined $125,000, which was later reduced to $82,000. Cash was defiant in court, claiming that when he was asked if he had started the fire he replied, “No, my truck did, and it’s dead, so you can’t question it.” The fire and his defiant attitude towards the authorities did much to contribute to his reputation as an outlaw, and not until much later would some of the officials involved, as did Cash himself, attribute the accident to the excessive alcohol and drug consumption which he was involved in at the time.