Wildfire Archives - Page 9 of 151

PacifiCorp settles another lawsuit over Labor Day fires

Kelly AnderssonDecember 6, 2023WildfireArchie Creek, lawsuit, PacifiCorp

PacifiCorp, an electric utility provider in the Pacific Northwest that was found guilty of gross negligence and recklessness in the 2020 Labor Day fires in Oregon, has agreed to pay $299 million to victims of fires in southern Oregon, according to a report by the Oregonian.

PacifiCorp, which owns Pacific Power, lost a similar lawsuit back in June for causing fires in the northern part of the state. The jury in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland found the utility liable for four of the Labor Day 2020 fires, after its powerlines ignited fires that burned about 2,500 properties in western Oregon. The 12-person jury determined that PacifiCorp was negligent for causing the Santiam, Echo Mountain, South Obenchain, and 242 fires after a 7-week class action trial. (The final verdict in that trial is posted on our DOCUMENTS page.)

2020 Labor Day fires — GOES-17 photo of smoke from wildfires in Washington, Oregon, and California at 5:56 p.m. PDT Sept. 8, 2020. This image was captured during the strong east wind event. NASA photo

A year ago, PacifiCorp settled another case out of court with two families who sued over the Archie Creek Fire, which burned more than 130,000 acres in Douglas County in 2020.

Tuesday’s settlement is unprecedented in Oregon and wraps up a 3-year legal battle that has financially and emotionally exhausted residents who lost homes and property in the firestorm.

The Archie Creek Fire leveled communities along the North Umpqua River east of Roseburg, and it was just one of numerous huge fires ignited during the Labor Day weekend windstorms.

The Labor Day fires collectively burned more than 1.2 million acres in Oregon, destroyed upwards of 5,000 homes and structures, and killed nine people. PacifiCorp, Oregon’s second largest utility, did not shut down power to any of its 600,000 customers during the windstorm — despite the fact they were repeatedly warned by emergency officials to power down their lines, which were implicated in six separate fires.

Archie Creek Fire map, 2:35 p.m. PDT Sept. 22, 2020.

Some 220 families and individuals sued, alleging negligence that caused the Archie Creek Fire. The $299 million settlement amounts to an average of about $1.35 million per family in the lawsuit, though individual claims vary widely. Victims will pay attorneys’ fees, estimated at 30 to 40 percent of the settlement. The settlement agreement avoids a consolidated trial that was scheduled for January 30 and shields PacifiCorp from much larger jury awards that would likely have included punitive damages.

The company had asked state regulators to protect it from the costs of future lawsuits over destructive wildfires; in the request to the Oregon Public Utility Commission in June, PacifiCorp also wanted ratepayers to pay for $90 million the jury found the company liable for. That request drew harsh criticism from wildfire victims, lawyers, and ratepayer advocates, who questioned the company’s motives and the proposal’s legality.

According to a report by The Hill, PacifiCorp said the settlement amounts are consistent with those previously estimated and established in accounting reserves for the wildfires. “PacifiCorp has settled and is committed to settling all reasonable claims for actual damages as provided under Oregon law,” the company said in a statement.

2020 Labor Day fires in western Oregon — 09/13/2020 — the Labor Day fires were among the worst natural disasters in Oregon’s history. They killed nine people, burned more than 1,875 square miles (4,856 square kilometers) and destroyed upwards of 5,000 homes and other structures.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers in the Labor Day fires’ litigation have criticized the utility for legal obstruction — instead of promptly settling with victims. They’ve sought legal sanctions against the company for withholding information about the origins of the fires, denying access to investigations after the fires, and limiting what employees could say in depositions.

The company still faces numerous lawsuits related to the 2020 fires, including a trial scheduled for January for seven timber companies that lost property in the Archie Creek Fire — their claims were not part of this week’s settlement.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Steffan Alexander has scheduled three trials early in 2024 to consider damages for another 20 plaintiffs; he has ordered the company and more than 1000 other plaintiffs into mediation — which could dramatically increase the utility’s financial liability. Total damages sought in lawsuits related to the 2020 fires is about $8 billion.

Maui agencies stall investigators

Kelly AnderssonNovember 29, 2023November 29, 2023WildfireHawaii, Lahaina, Maui2 Comments

The Honolulu Civil Beat has reported that three county agencies on the island of Maui have been subpoenaed by the state attorney general’s office after failing to provide information needed for the state investigation into the August wildfires.

The hurricane-driven Maui firestorm was the worst fire disaster in the U.S. in over a century; the New York Times reported on August 13 that fatalities resulting from the Maui fires had surpassed that of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California; it was the deadliest wildfire since the 1918 Cloquet inferno in Minnesota killed hundreds of people. Both locals and experts were pleading with tourists from the U.S. mainland and elsewhere to cancel vacation plans and spare locals and emergency responders the drain on scarce resources. Hotels and other lodging options on Maui were scrambling to shelter evacuees and the suddenly homeless.

A local CBS affiliate reported that dozens of homes and businesses were destroyed on the western part of the island of Maui, the second largest and third most populated island in the state. HawaiiNewsNow reported that witnesses described apocalyptic scenes; residents said an overwhelmed fire force, fighting flames all day in powerful winds, could do little as flames ripped through and leveled most of the historic district of Lahaina.

Not quite four months later, the state investigation is focused on fire locations and a timeline of events, and it’s still lacking critical facts, according to the Fire Safety Research Institute, which was hired by the state’s attorney general. “Until that happens, this critical process cannot move forward,” said Attorney General Anne Lopez. She said some Maui agencies have cooperated with investigators, but that subpoenas were issued to the Maui Emergency Management Agency, the Maui Department of Public Works and the Maui Department of Water Supply. The Honolulu Civil Beat said it contacted all three agencies and got no response from any of them.

Mahina Martin with Mayor Richard Bissen’s office said the county has “cooperated fully” with the investigation but that the county has not shared everything investigators have requested. She explained that some items were submitted to investigators, about 20 more are pending, and another dozen require federal Department of Homeland Security clearance before they can be produced. She said investigators have finished more than 90 interviews of county personnel.

Civil Beat asked the attorney general’s office what information it is seeking through the subpoenas but they declined. In the aftermath of the historic fires, Civil Beat filed records requests with the Maui Emergency Management Agency — including text messages, emergency operations center activity logs, requests for assistance to the state and its continuity plan, and an outline of who is in charge if top leadership is absent, as was the case on August 8 when the fires started. MEMA has not provided any of these records.

A report by The Hill said the fires damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 structures and burned over 2,000 acres, according to FEMA records. The rebuilding could cost upward of $5 billion.

Other Maui agencies, meanwhile, have handed over requested information to investigators and the AG’s office. “We appreciate the cooperation of the Maui fire and police departments, and while we continue to work through some issues, their leaders and line responders have been transparent and cooperative,” Lopez said.

Enviros sue Park Service over planting sequoias

Kelly AnderssonNovember 28, 2023December 1, 2023Wildfirelawsuit, NPS, sequoias1 Comment

The National Park Service plans to replant sequoia groves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, where fires in 2020 and 2021 caused lasting damage to sequoia groves on federal land, but environmentalist groups in California say it would set a legal precedent and be a huge mistake.

Four groups filed suit against the NPS on November 17, saying the agency’s efforts violate the law, because designated wilderness areas prohibit human involvement in the ecosystem — even if it includes planting trees.

Three fires in two years that killed giant sequoia trees. The darker green areas represent groves of giant sequoias.

Surveys of sequoias on NPS land found that in 2020 and 2021, almost 20 percent of all giant sequoias in their natural range that were over 4 feet in diameter or more were killed by fire (and neglect) or were expected to die in the next few years. In 2020, surveyors estimated that 10 to 14 percent of the entire Sierra Nevada population of giant sequoias over 4 feet in diameter were killed in the Castle Fire. The following year, the KNP Complex and the Windy Fire burned between 2200 and 3600 sequoias over 4 feet in diameter; those sequoias were killed or are expected to die within 5 years.

CBS News reported on the project a year ago:

The NPS announced the seedling-planting project and said it was “concerned that natural regeneration may not be sufficient to support self-sustaining groves into the future, particularly as the fires killed an unprecedented number of reproductive sequoia trees in the groves themselves.”

Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project, one of the groups that is suing, disputes that conclusion. Sequoias actually “depend on high-intensity fire in order to reproduce effectively,” Hanson told CNN. “Nature doesn’t need our help. We are not supposed to be getting involved with tending it like a garden.”

Advocates at Wilderness Watch, Sequoia Forest Keeper, and the Tule River Conservancy first sued the NPS in September to stop a separate project by the agency to cut and burn trees in the same designated wilderness areas, cutting on about 1000 acres of forest land and designating 20,000 additional acres as available to “manager-ignited fires and associated activity,” according to the complaint.

“Recently burned groves are RESTORING THEMSELVES — as they have done for more than one hundred centuries!” according to the Sequoia Portal, whose mission is to add existing roadless areas of the Sequoia National Park, National Forest, and National Monument to the National Wilderness Preservation System. “Millions of sequoia seedlings carpet these burned groves,” says the Portal. “Do they think the public is stupid enough to think that any agency can replace full-grown 3200-year-old red barked sequoias? ALL the iconic ancient giants started as tiny seedlings, and they are already growing — immediately seeded by their scorched giant sequoia parents! As it has always been in the groves. And the majority of the largest giants are NOT DEAD.”

The John Muir Project, a nonprofit focused on protecting federal forests, joined the lawsuit on November 17, amending it to include the sequoia replanting project as part of the complaint. The groups now jointly accuse the NPS of illegally encroaching on federally protected land in both of the projects.

Firefighter on the Windy Fire applies water on a burning giant sequoia tree. Photo uploaded to InciWeb Oct. 11, 2021. — Firefighter on the 2021 Windy Fire applies water on a burning giant sequoia. InciWeb photo

The complaint in U.S. District Court in Fresno is an addendum to a suit filed earlier this year that challenged the NPS for other work in wilderness areas of Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks. Besides planting seedlings, NPS crews have been thinning and burning around sequoia groves to reduce wildfire risk, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Both the fire-prevention work and the tree-replanting project followed in the aftermath of fires that wiped out unprecedented numbers of sequoias.

NPS staff declined to comment on the lawsuit, but confirmed that replanting had already begun in two sequoia groves back in mid-October, before the latter complaint was filed.

“The Park Service has to abide by the 1964 Wilderness Act,” said Kevin Proescholdt, conservation director at Wilderness Watch. “We should still allow these natural ecosystems to respond as they want to the changes brought about by the changing climate. The more that agencies will allow natural fire to burn and perform its role, the better these wilderness forests will be,” he said.

The groups claim the projects were approved after required processes of environmental review and public engagement were circumvented by declaring they were “emergency” projects that would not have to meet those requirements.

The NPS said in its project announcement it would replant only in areas that field surveys showed insufficient natural regeneration to successfully re-establish, as they would if they hadn’t experienced severe fire effects in recent fires.

timber

After 150 years, wolves back in southern California — thanks to wildfire

Hunter BasslerNovember 25, 2023WildfireCalifornia, Windy Fire, wolves6 Comments

Wildfires don’t “destroy” the landscapes they burn through.

Wildfires can kill trees, vegetation, and occasionally wildlife. Flames can burn down homes and businesses in towns and neighborhoods. They can even level entire city blocks.

But wildfires don’t “destroy” acres of land. More often than not, fire paves the way for something new to take root; to grow back.

A new thing has taken root in the burn scar of southern California’s 2021 Windy Fire. The lightning-caused wildfire, which burned just north of the 2016 Cedar Fire east of Porterville, burned nearly 100,000 acres of the Tule River Indian Reservation and the Sequoia National Forest, killing an estimated 3 to 5 percent of the world’s giant sequoia population.

A keystone species — an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem — is calling the fire area home again, 150 years after being hunted and driven out. A pack of gray wolves, one adult female and four cubs, has been seen in the area, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). The pack is officially the state’s southernmost wolf pack and is more than 200 miles from the nearest separate wolf pack.

“CDFW investigated the reported location, found wolf tracks and other signs of wolf presence, and collected 12 scat and hair samples from the immediate area for genetic testing,” according to the agency. “The new pack consists of at least one adult female, who is a direct descendant of California’s first documented wolf in the state in recent history.”

This image is the first photo of the pack’s adult female:

Southern California wolf photo by Michelle Harris, Colibri Ecological Consulting

While the wolves’ return to the area is historically and ecologically significant, wolves finding home in a burn scar is reportedly a common occurrence, according to an article from Scientific American.

A lack of trees allows more sunlight to hit the soil and causes plants to sprout. The plants attract deer and other species, offering wolves ample eating opportunities. Burn scars can also act as prime den sites for wolves, with clear forests offering less obstructed views of their surroundings, intruders, and predators. And wolves aren’t the only animals to take advantage of a post-wildfire landscape.

“Other animals, such as wild turkeys, are attracted to areas soon after fire because they forage on seeds and invertebrates on the ground in the blackened areas,” said Chris Moorman, a professor of fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology at NC State University. Low-intensity prescribed fires can also increase abundance and diversity of certain plant species in forest understories.

west of Kernville

Flooding a swamp wildfire douses the flames, but boosts ‘noxious’ smoke

Hunter BasslerNovember 17, 2023November 17, 2023WildfireLouisiana, super fog, swamp smoke2 Comments

A “super fog” is blanketing the New Orleans area, worsening vehicle crashes and causing health concerns among residents. The weather phenomenon has been blamed for numerous traffic incidents including a series of horrific crashes in late October involving 158 vehicles that left seven people dead and 25 injured.

But attempts to douse a nearby wildfire may actually be making the super fog worse.

A 200-acre wildfire burning near the Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge has been fully contained for weeks, but residents have told local media that “noxious smoke” from the fire is causing a harsh chemical-like odor. The uniquely foul-smelling smoke is caused, in part, by the fire’s underground burning.

“Your usual marsh fire is on dry brush and grass, and it burns fast and has a sweet smell,” the New Orleans Fire Department told the Times-Picayune. “But when it gets into that stuff underground, that’s rotting vegetation. And yes, it starts stinking.”

The stink may be gaining potency because of firefighters’ suppression efforts. They are working with the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry, the city’s Sewerage & Water Board, and the Army Corps of Engineers to drive drainage canal water to flood the swamp where the wildfire is burning.

The City of New Orleans’ Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said the flooding is a last-ditch effort, with few other above-the-surface suppression efforts having any effect on extinguishing the fire. But, as more water is poured on the fire, more smoke rises.

“As you put water on some areas, you do experience more smoke coming up,” New Orleans Fire Department Superintendent Roman Nelson told the newspaper.

Vegetation in swamps and wetlands have a higher than average fuel moisture content, which requires more energy to drive off the water and increases emissions, i.e. smoke, per unit of fuel consumed, the FS Smoke Management Guide said. The last-resort flooding is, albeit temporarily, increasing the fuel moisture content and the noxious emissions.

Firefighters say it’s difficult to estimate just how much of the fire has been extinguished since the ground absorbs so much of the flooding, but they believe around 20 percent of the fire is now out.

Satellite views of Canada’s largest 2023 fires

Hunter BasslerNovember 11, 2023November 11, 2023Wildfire2023, Canada, fire spread, NASA

Over 18 million hectares (more than 44 million acres, roughly the size of North Dakota), were burned during Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season this year, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). Canada usually sees only 2.5 million hectares burn annually. Although the number of fires that burned this year isn’t unusual — 6,595 as of October — many of the fires that did burn spread to “megafire” status.

Newly released NASA satellite imagery shows the day-by-day expansion of some of these megafires. The year’s second-largest fire burned 1,224,938 hectares (4,730 square miles) southeast of Sakami in Quebec; it was fully contained in late July.

NASA satellite imagery also shows the spread of four wildfires in and south of the Northwest Territories. The western-most fire, burning near Fort Nelson, stopped spreading in August after burning 802,575 hectares. It then was reignited by winds in late September and early October and spread to 1,294,096 hectares, becoming the state’s largest wildfire as of November 4. The animation details the fire’s first spread.

Scientists tracked the fires with the new “Fire Events Data Suite” (FEDS), which draws on data from a group of satellites called VIIRS. “The thing that really sets FEDS apart is that the system excels at tracking the daily, incremental spread of fires at 12-hour intervals,” said Yang Chen, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California, Irvine. “That makes near real-time monitoring possible and allows us to generate much more detailed views of fire progression than we have been able to do in the past.”

The new system will reportedly help fire crews pinpoint the parts of a fire perimeter that are actively burning and identify residual heat from the fire that may pose a hazard to wildland firefighters.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: