Learning From the Past. A Reckoning at Last?

A little daylight always helps us see.

In that spirit, litigation surrounding the terrible Labor Day fires in Southern Oregon has brought some news of this tragic event to light, and as PacifiCorp faces two lawsuits, a reckoning may be near. As the quote says, “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.”

The end result? It is fairly clear that poor communication, misdirection, and confusion between the state and the power suppliers exacerbated the conflagration, and we can only hope that this leads to more efficient procedures in the future.

At CRT, we are not interested in pointing fingers. But what we are interested in is making sure we are prepared for further disasters, which are certain to happen.

In this case, and in a nutshell, perhaps most tragically, hours before Oregon essentially caught on fire, then-Gov. Kate Brown’s chief of staff and the state’s fire protection chief encouraged three utilities to preemptively shut off electricity to prevent catastrophic blazes amid a historic windstorm.

That’s according to a recent deposition of the former state fire protection chief, Doug Grafe, whose revelation comes just ahead of a trial set for April 24 alleging that PacifiCorp’s negligence sparked state-wide fires.

As of now, PacifiCorp stands accused in two lawsuits that its power lines ignited five fires in Oregon on Sept. 7 and Sept. 8, 2020, that burned hundreds of thousands of acres across the state, destroyed hundreds of homes and structures, and threw thousands of victims lives into financial and emotional chaos.

Those of you who lived through those horrifying days may feel relief that there is an accounting, both in assessing blame and improving fire response but also offering the possibility of reparation.

A class action lawsuit representing thousands of victims of four of the 2020 fires — the Santiam Canyon Fires east of Salem, the Echo Mountain Complex near Lincoln City, the South Obenchain Fire near Eagle Point, and the 242 Fire in the upper Klamath Basin — is set to go to trial April 24 in Multnomah County.

But that’s not all. Another lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 200 households and seven timber companies whose property was destroyed in the Archie Creek Fire along the North Umpqua River in Southern Oregon is scheduled for November. PacifiCorp is the local electricity provider in all those communities.

As events of that terrible day come to light, we see that current policy means that state officials are hamstrung: They can’t simply order utilities to preemptively shut off electrical grids.

However, the revelation of the governor’s emergency phone call and the officials’ request to cut electricity provides new insight about potential actions that state officials think could have prevented some fires, which in total burned more than a million acres in our green state.

Already in support of the fire survivors, independent investigations by the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Douglas Forest

Protective Association have determined that PacifiCorp equipment caused or likely caused three separate ignitions in the Archie Creek blaze east of Roseburg.

As this trial progresses, those of you who are fire survivors -- or friends or families of those caught up in these horrific events-- may not even care at this point: You’ve put the disaster behind you, and moved on.

But for many of you who are still grappling with the multiple, unheard of fires, perhaps this leads to a feeling of upcoming closure.

And it is CRT’s hope that these tragedies can provide an opportunity for rethinking our legislation, communication, and responses to the fire next time.