FRESNO – The company that hired a pregnant teenager who died of heat stroke this spring after laboring in a Central Valley vineyard was hit Wednesday with the highest fine ever issued to a California farming operation.

The state Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined Atwater-based Merced Farm Labor a record $262,700 for violating eight workplace safety requirements. The agency said in some cases the violations were intentional.

Authorities believe 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez died on May 14 because her supervisors denied her access to shade and water as she pruned white wine grapes for more than nine hours in nearly triple-digit heat.

“I feel good because at least they're being fined for not doing anything when all that happened,” said her fiance, 19-year-old Florentino Bautista, who is back working in the grape vines for a different employer. “Now we'll have to see if they keep acting the same way.”

Inspectors found that Merced Farm Labor not only failed to provide water but deliberately neglected to train workers and managers on how to stay safe while working under the valley's punishing temperatures. The company also willfully skirted preparing for a medical emergency, the agency said.

Those three violations – which are classified as “serious,” the state's most severe criteria – each carry a $70,000 penalty, the highest afforded under civil law.

The company could face additional fines should San Joaquin County authorities decide to pursue criminal charges.

Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet also is in the process of revoking the contractor's license.

“There was virtually a complete absence of shade or water, two of the very few tools that employers and employees have to fight the heat,” said Len Welsh, chief of the division known as Cal-OSHA. “It's just too bad we can't undo the consequences of those violations.”

The firm's attorney, James Gumberg, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Since Vasquez Jimenez's death, three other field laborers have died in incidents the agency is investigating as heat-related.

California – which in 2005 implemented the country's first heat-illness standard – requires that farms and contractors give workers water and breaks, have shade available and have emergency plans in place.

But the United Farm Workers and some Sacramento legislators say conditions for those who pick and sort fruit in thousands of orchards across the state have yet to improve substantially.

“Employers or labor contractors that do not comply with the heat illness prevention standards ... will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” read a statement Wednesday from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who made a brief appearance at Vasquez Jimenez's funeral. “These organizations must obey the law and protect workers' safety or we will shut them down.”