"Now, the article also mentioned that he left the fire unattended, and that raises the question whether or not a signal fire could have been done with more care. But that is not at all what the court focuses on."

Yeah, I'm not saying the court decision is necessarily wrong, but the way they went about it seems wrong. They are focusing too much on stuff that doesn't matter - like a first aid kit.

Yeah, the amount is definitely an influential factor. However, it's probably based on actual cost to put out the fire. I'm not sure what the answer is to balance interests here. Should tax payers just foot the bill anytime someone accidentally starts a fire (reckless? Negligence? Etc too?) or needs to be rescued, or do we need to have personal insurance against these things and what does that cost? I'd say I'm generally against personal insurance for everyday life and definitely against mandated personal insurance for most activities as you can essentially regulate lawful activities out of existence and price out classes of people. A potential fix would be charging a low fee hiking pass that acts similar to insurance to help the governwment cover costs likely to arise from public use. Although I'm sure this has some concerns with use restriction and pricing people out of a public resource as well.