Question
I live in Moshav Beit Meir and we have two questions that stem from the huge fire of last week. Since the entire moshav is located inside a forest, we are always aware of the potential to suffer from a fire and we try as best as we can to prepare for a fire. When the fire started burning in Beit Meir, one thing that the government did was to clear a path to be free of anything combustible in order to prevent the fire from spreading further. They ruined people's lawns, cut down trees etc. in order to save other people's property. Besides this, many people spent their own money in order to save both their own property as well as other people's property. In many cases both of these efforts were successful B"H. The issue we have is in the event that the authorities and/or insurance does not reimburse those who suffered losses or spent money in order to prevent the fire from spreading, do those who benefited from these efforts have to reimburse those who spent their own money or suffered losses that benefited others?
Answer
Since those who benefited from other people's losses didn't do anything to cause the loss, the only possible reason to charge them is because sometimes one must pay for a benefit that he received that resulted from another person's loss. Your two questions have an important difference. Where the government damaged people's property, the government was acting in the public interest. However, when the person who spent money and perhaps destroyed his own property was a person whose property was in danger as well, there is a possibility that he was acting in order to save his own property and not in order to save his neighbors' property.
Therefore, we will examine the two scenarios: one is where the one who suffered a loss was a third party who was not in danger, and the other where the one who suffered a loss could have suffered a loss himself.
The basic principle that determines when a person is liable for the benefits that he received is that when his benefactor suffered a loss, he is liable, and if he did not, he is not liable. The latter possibility is called by the Gemara ze nehene veze lo choseir which the Gemara (BK 20A-21A) discusses at length and concludes that the beneficiary does not have to pay his benefactor for the benefit that he received.
In the case where the government caused damage, since they did not benefit from their loss, clearly the ones who benefited from their expense must pay for their benefit that resulted from other people's loss. This was the ruling of the Shevus Yaakov (2, 156) in a situation that was essentially the same as your situation.
His question concerned a huge fire that broke out in Prague in 1713. The local government cut down the roofs of many two-story (wooden) houses in order to prevent the flames from spreading. The issue that was brought to beis din was whether or not the owner of the first-floor apartment must share in the cost of repairing the roof, since the roof belonged to the owner of the upper story. The Shevus Yaakov ruled that the first-floor owners needed to pay for their benefit because the government was a third party that acted to benefit both neighbors. Since the two neighbors were equal beneficiaries, they both needed to pay for their benefit. Therefore, he ruled that the owner of the lower-floor had to pay half of the cost of repairing the roof.
In your situation, probably the beneficiaries did not all derive equal benefit from the government's action. Therefore, we must decide how much each one must pay. There are a number of proofs from the Gemara that the amount that each must pay is based on the monetary value of the property that was saved. Thus, if the value of the property belonging to resident A that was saved due to the government's action is a million dollars and if the property of resident B was half a million dollars, A will need to pay twice as much as B. The government and its firefighters do not have to pay for their damages since that is what people want them to do, so those who were damaged can collect from those who benefited because their benefits came at the expense of those who were damaged (ze nehene veze choseir).
One proof that the expense is divided based on relative benefit is a Gemara (BK 116B) that rules concerning a group of people traveling together who were attacked by bandits. The group paid the thieves not to rob them. The Gemara rules that the expenditure to pay off the thieves is divided based on the value of the goods that each saved by paying off the thieves.
Therefore, the answer to your first question is that for the damages that resulted from the actions of the fire department, beis din should determine the total value of the damages and determine the value of the assets that were saved and divide the expense according to the percentage that each benefited from the fire department's damages.
The distinguishing feature of your second question is that the one who spent money was a person whose property was endangered and therefore, there is the possibility that his intention was to save his own property and only because the same action that he did to save his own property also saved his neighbors' property that he actually saved his neighbors' property. Thus, their property was saved but the neighbor did not really spend any money for that purpose. We will thus study the law if the person who spent money did so only because he wanted to save his own property.
The Ramo (264, 4) discusses a situation where this was the issue. A hired people to save his seforim. They were successful and when they saved his seforim, for no extra cost, they also saved B's seforim. The issue was whether B must pay a share of A's expense since he directly benefited from A's expense. The Ramo ruled that it depends on A's intention. If, when A hired people to save his own seforim his intention was that they should save B's seforim as well, then B must share in A's expense. However, if A only intended to save his own seforim, B does not have to pay because his benefit did not come at A's expense (ze nehene veze lo choseir).
The Ramo also discusses this issue in a responsum (86). There he explains why, when A intended to save B's seforim, B has to share in A's expense. He explains that since when A spent money, he did so with the intention to save B's seforim as well, we view his expenditure as being for a joint purpose. He compares this to the case where the travelers spent money in order to save everyone's possessions, where everyone must pay a share. There is a difference in that in the case of the travelers they all agreed to spend the money whereas here A spent the money without consulting with B. Nonetheless, one who benefits from another person's expenditure must pay his benefactor because the benefactor has the status of a yoreid even if the beneficiary was not consulted. Therefore, the fact that B was not consulted does not free him from paying for his benefit.
We note that even if A had asked B in advance to share in his expenditure and B had refused, A could still force B to share in the expense. This is because whenever two people need to spend money for a mutual need, one can force the other to pay his share of the cost.
The Nesivos (178, 3) proves this from many laws in the SA. For example, SA (163, 1) rules, based on the Gemara (BB 7B), that any of the residents of a town can force all of the others to pay their share to build a shul, or to construct a protective wall or any other essential community requirements. The Nesivos says that the reason is because everyone really needs these things and it is just that some people forego their necessities in order to save their money, that they don't want to build.
The reason this is important in your case is that the Nesivos in one place (264, 6) maintains that it is essential that A could force B in advance, in order to be able to force B after the fact to share in A's expense if A spent the money on his behalf. We note that almost all the poskim (See Mishpatei Yosher 2, page 228-232) disagree with this Nesivos and maintain that this is not necessary. We just mention this so that our ruling will be correct according to all poskim.
Thus, concerning your question whether those whose property was saved because a fellow resident spent money to prevent the fire from spreading further must compensate the resident who spent his money, it depends on the intention of the one who spent his money: If his intention included saving the others' property, those who benefited must pay their share of his expense as we discussed above. However, if the reason he spent his money was to save his own property, he is not entitled to compensation from the others who benefited.
It is important that the same Shevus Yaakov (1, 158) had another question concerning a fire, where he addressed this issue as well. In a mammoth fire in 1689 that destroyed all of the houses in the community save one, the residents of the saved house had a question. The reason their three-story house was saved was because the owner of the upper floor destroyed his own roof. The question was whether the owners of the lower two stories were obligated to share in the cost of reconstructing the roof. In this case, the Shevus Yaakov ruled that they do not have to share in the cost of reconstructing the roof.
In the responsum that was cited earlier the Shevus Yaakov explains the discrepancy between his two rulings. He says that in 1689 the one who destroyed the roof was the owner of the upper floor apartment and, therefore, the Shevus Yaakov assumed that he broke the roof to save his own apartment. However, in the fire of 1713 it was the municipality that destroyed the roof and they certainly intended to save everyone's property.
Thus, returning to your case: If the people who spent money intended to save their fellow residents' property, everyone who benefited must share in their expense. If not, they do not. The fact that, as you said in your question, you are always aware of the danger of a fire, suggests that whoever spent money to stop the fire intended to save everyone's property. The fact that Beis Meir is a small united community suggests this as well.
