PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Jury selection began Monday for the trial that 17 plaintiffs are bringing against PacifiCorp, an electric power company that operates Pacific Power in Oregon.
These plaintiffs were all impacted by the 2020 wildfires and believe that through a trial, they can prove the utility company was responsible for the damage. Collectively, they’re asking for $1.6 billion in damages.
“This lawsuit is about the thousands of Oregonians whose lives have been forever changed because of one corporation’s inexcusable and indefensible wrongdoing. By leaving its power lines energized during extremely critical fire conditions on Labor Day – knowing that a historic windstorm would bring trees down onto power lines and ignite uncontrollable fires – PacifiCorp and Pacific Power caused devastation and destruction on a massive scale,” the lawsuit states.
The 2020 fires burned more than 1.2 million acres of land in Oregon, destroyed close to 5,000 homes and businesses and killed nine people.
The defendants accused PacifiCorp and Pacific Power of starting some of the fires that blazed across the state after the 2020 Labor Day wind storm, including the Beachie Creek Fire, the Echo Mountain Complex Fire, the Pike Road Fire and the South Obenchain Fire.
On Labor Day 2020, the National Weather Service in Portland had issued a high wind warning and said gusts could reach 45 mph in lower elevations and up to 60 mph in higher terrain. There was also a red flag warning in effect from 11 a.m. Monday to 8 p.m. Wednesday in Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington.
“Defendants knew very high winds would hit Oregon on Labor Day… Defendants knew that the overwhelming majority of their power lines and electrical infrastructure did not use technologies to mitigate fire risk,” the lawsuit states.
In a deposition given April 5, 2023, Doug Grafe, who was the Oregon Department of Forestry’s chief of fire protection during the September 2020 fires, said he does not remember former Gov. Kate Brown’s former Chief of Staff Nik Blosser explicitly asking for the power to be turned off.
He said Blosser led a call the evening of September 7, 2020 to inform utility companies of the fire conditions and the potential for more fire ignitions from utilities. According to Grafe, when he testified under oath, it would have been clear from that call that if utility companies de-energized their lines, they could have avoided potential fire ignitions.
“I feel like that meeting that the utilities had a – that message was clear to them. That they – they’re well-informed that turning power off would have decreased the potential for new ignitions across the state of Oregon,” Grafe stated in his deposition.
Grafe said he expressed to the utility companies that the threat of fire was significant from the crest of the Cascades and west. He said during the call “nobody indicated that they were going to initiate a public safety power shutoff.”
According to other court documents filed, Blosser has also acknowledged there was no explicit request for utilities to de-energize their power lines, but said he believed everyone understood the point of the call.
In a response issued in court documents on April 13, PacifiCorp points out that Oregon state officials never actually requested the company to proactively shut off its power lines.
“Plaintiffs have not shown that PacifiCorp violated any court order,” attorneys for PacifiCorp state in the court document.
The company said its then-Senior Vice President for External Affairs Scott Bolton was asked to join a call with state officials at 8 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 7, 2020. Attorneys said that from Bolton’s perspective, it was a routine call and said at no point did anyone ask or direct or encourage Pacific Power to conduct a public safety power shutdown or otherwise proactively de-energize its power lines.
“When the Governor’s Office wants Pacific Power to do something, it typically just asks – whether or not it has authority to order any action,” the court document from PacifiCorp’s attorneys states.
The Oregon Department of Forestry is the lead agency investigating some of the Labor Day 2020 wildfires, including the Echo Mountain Complex Fire, the Beachie Creek Fire, the Pike Road Fire and the South Obenchain Fire. It has not yet completed any of the investigations.
According to the Oregon Judicial Department, jury selection for the trial is expected to conclude Monday and opening statements will likely begin Tuesday morning. The court system estimates the trial will last approximately 8 weeks.