FILE - Damage from the Santiam Fire near Gates, Ore., Sept. 9, 2020. An Oregon Department of Forestry report says PacifiCorp didn’t cause the fire, contradicting federal reports and a jury decision.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Oregon’s forestry department has concluded that the state’s second-largest electrical utility, PacifiCorp, didn’t spark any of the Santiam Canyon fires that consumed hundreds of homes in 2020.
That’s despite federal fire responders reporting early on that the fires were sparked by electrical equipment — and despite a jury verdict in 2023, which found the utility caused substantial damage during fires in the canyon, as well as fires in southern and coastal parts of the state.
The Oregon Department of Forestry released its report Wednesday in response to public records requests by multiple news outlets. It comes as PacifiCorp, which is owned by the trillion-dollar company Berkshire Hathaway, pushes for state legislation that would give it some protection against wildfire lawsuits, and less than a week before a trial begins in Multnomah County to determine how much the company owes additional plaintiffs. PacifiCorp is the parent company of electric utility Pacific Power.
Since the 2023 class-action lawsuit, juries have awarded over $240 million to 44 plaintiffs, and PacifiCorp has settled with another 403 plaintiffs for $178 million, as reported by the Salem Statesman Journal.
Citing interviews with local fire responders and about a dozen residents, the Oregon Department of Forestry’s report says PacifiCorp’s electrical equipment sparked about seven fires, but nearby residents and local fire responders put those out before they could spread. What eventually culminated in the Santiam Canyon fires — which killed five people, destroyed hundreds of homes and burned over 193,000 acres — didn’t stem from PacifiCorp’s downed power lines and exploding transmitters, state forestry department investigators said. Rather, embers from the nearby lightning-caused Beachie Creek fire, which started on federal land, led to the Santiam Fire.
Over that Labor Day weekend, U.S. Forest Service press releases attributed at least 13 Santiam Canyon fires to downed power lines. Levi Hopkins, deputy chief of policy and planning for ODF’s protection division, told the Statesman Journal that Forest Service employees' written statements could not say whether those press releases were true.
The Forest Service refused to allow the Oregon Department of Forestry to directly interview its employees, ODF’s report says, and only provided written statements from eight employees. ODF couldn’t ask follow-up questions.
PacifiCorp executives celebrated the Oregon Department of Forestry report a few hours after it was first reported on by Willamette Week.
“While we continue to recognize that the 2020 wildfires were undeniably tragic, the thorough investigation by ODF provides important context and details absent during the trial proceedings,” Pacific Power president Ryan Flynn said in a news release.
While ODF’s report may benefit PacifiCorp in future trials, courts aren’t likely to overturn previous decisions because of it.
It’s unusual for fire investigations to take this long. The state forestry department report attributes the delay to limited resources. Its staff also couldn’t access the area until a week after the fires started.
“The department recognizes that this has been a long-anticipated report and that there are still several other reports from the 2020 Labor Day Fires that the public would like to see,” an ODF press release reads. “The remaining reports are currently undergoing cost collection litigation to recoup firefighting costs and reduce financial impacts on taxpayers.”
ODF’s report says PacifiCorp employees removed damaged equipment before fire investigators assessed the scene, something that also came to light during trial. ODF staff don’t know what was removed or how valuable it could have been to investigations.
“ODF’s report apparently doesn’t consider all the evidence that came out at trial,” Cody Berne, an attorney representing plaintiffs in PacifiCorp lawsuits, said in a statement. “ODF released this report despite acknowledging that it was ‘unable to analyze’ key evidence because PacifiCorp took it to the dump — a fact that the jury also knew and could weigh in making its decision.”
The report doesn’t cite testimony from the class-action lawsuit against PacifiCorp.
“The ODF investigation is an independent, unbiased investigation specifically created to recoup fire costs and is separate from third-party litigation,” Joy Krawczyk, a Department of Forestry spokesperson, said, adding that the department wouldn’t comment on litigation between private parties.
Some of the public trial testimony from that case includes information that goes against the Department of Forestry’s conclusions. For example, the forestry department report says fires stemming from PacifiCorp’s equipment at a school in Gates didn’t spread.
Nathan Steele, a cattle truck driver who tried to help put fires out that day, testified during PacifiCorp’s trials that the fire spread beyond the Gates School. He had never seen it extinguished during the 24- to 36-hour period that he remained in the area, according to court transcripts.
During court proceedings, Dean Warner, a federal fire behavior analyst who was with a firefighting team at the Gates School, said he saw multiple fires at the school and the surrounding area. He said he didn’t believe those fires stemmed from Beachie Creek fire embers. Federal firefighting resources had to be redirected to the Gates School in ODF’s jurisdiction because of fires sparked by powerlines, Warner said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to remove references to text messages PacifiCorp staff sent over the 2020 Labor Day weekend regarding fires near Lincoln City that were potentially caused by the company’s equipment.