A federal judge put forward a mixed opinion in the lawsuit blaming the Bonneville Power Administration for the Holiday Farm Fire. In a new order, Judge Mustafa Kasubhai allowed the lawsuit to go forward, but narrowed the arguments that can be brought against the BPA.
The lawsuit, which has been going through the courts for years, argues BPA and local utilities Eugene Water and Electric Board and Lane Electric Co-Operative are liable for the huge 2020 fire, and owe compensation to the people and businesses impacted as well as their insurers.
All sides presented jurisdictional arguments to Kasubhai in October, with the BPA aiming to get itself dismissed from the case by arguing the federal district court doesn’t have jurisdiction over it, while the other parties tried to keep BPA implicated.
In a Feb. 11 order, Kasubhai kept open the possibility BPA is liable, allowing more argument to proceed.
Study implicates all three utilities
Crews from Lane Electric work on power lines along Highway 126 east of Springfield in 2021 after a devastating fire in 2020 wiped out infrastructure.
Crews from Lane Electric work on power lines along Highway 126 east of Springfield in 2021 after a devastating fire in 2020 wiped out infrastructure.
During discovery, a 2022 study from the U.S. Forest Service that implicated all three utilities in the fire became public.
The forest service concluded two ignitions merged and caused the fire. The first was after a tree fell on a de-energized EWEB power line, which pushed it onto an energized LEC line, sending a surge of electricity through the EWEB line and igniting nearby vegetation.
The second ignition occurred 6 miles west. The power from the re-energized EWEB line also re-energized a BPA line, which had been knocked over by another tree that came down in the high winds. This ignited more vegetation.
The two fires converged that night and burned approximately 173,175 acres.