Cal. PRC § 4435

This is the official text of Cal. PRC § 4435, part of California’s Public Resources Code — covers environmental protection, state parks, and natural resource management.

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Official statutory text

If any fire originates from the operation or use of any engine, machine, barbecue, incinerator, railroad rolling stock, chimney, or any other device which may kindle a fire, the occurrence of the fire is prima facie evidence of negligence in the maintenance, operation, or use of such engine, machine, barbecue, incinerator, railroad rolling stock, chimney, or other device. If such fire escapes from the place where it originated and it can be determined which person’s negligence caused such fire, such person is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.