EDITORIAL FIRE FRAUD DON'T PUNISH VALS FOR STATE'S FISCAL MISMANAGEMENT.

WHY should middle-class San Fernando Valley residents pay more to protect the mansions of wealthy homeowners on the fire-prone hillsides?

Californians love to live close to nature, where the elements could easily wipe them out, and where the state firefighters who come to the rescue don't leave a bill. But that may be about to change.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to add a fee of 1.25 percent to fire-insurance premiums to help offset the cost of state firefighting, which last year was $1 billion and rising.

But is such a fee smart? Why should Vals pay extra to protect the homes of those who build on fire-prone hills in Malibu?

And why a fee of 1.25 percent, which would raise only $125 million, a fraction of the costs?

This is beginning to sound like just an excuse for the equivalent of a tax increase, and a piddling one at that, considering the state's deficit next year will be at least $14 billion.

As Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich has observed, it looks like double taxation for Angelenos. In 2000, residents of the city of Los Angeles approved a $32-a-year bond measure for improved fire protection. And a few years earlier L.A. County residents served by the County Fire Department approved a $50 tax.

Compare that with San Diego residents, who twice rejected taxes to improve their fire services, and various other parts of the state that have been equally averse to paying more taxes for better fire protection -- despite devastating losses in recent wildfires.

There are 1 million homes built on land so far away from municipal fire services that the state must protect them. A fee added to their fire insurance seems reasonable, especially in high-risk places where people seem to expect others to pay for their protection.

But gouging middle-class homeowners to pay for Sacramento's fiscal mismanagement is unconscionable.