PacifiCorp officially owes Oregonians more than $1 billion for 2020 fires
A Wednesday court verdict pushed the Warren Buffett-owned utility beyond the remarkable figure.
Oregon’s second-largest electric utility saw its costs for devastating wildfires in 2020 exceed the $1 billion mark Wednesday.
The notable milestone comes as PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, has denied its responsibility for a series of fires started near electrical equipment in the Willamette Valley, the Oregon Coast and Southern Oregon.
On Wednesday, a Multnomah County jury awarded more than $305 million in total damages to more than a dozen people, including children, who had their livelihoods upended by the most devastating wildfire season in Oregon’s recorded history1.
Attorneys for the Oregonians seeking compensation from PacifiCorp declined to comment on the landmark ruling.
The Western Edge has reached out to PacifiCorp for comment.
Wednesday’s ruling stems from a 2023 trial where jurors found PacifiCorp negligently left its equipment energized ahead of a significant windstorm on Labor Day weekend in 2020, among other failures. When tree branches began to fall during that storm, equipment then sparked or contributed to the Santiam Canyon, Echo Mountain Complex, South Obenchain and 242 wildfires.
Wednesday’s verdict only involved victims from the Santiam Canyon Fire, which torched entire towns, such as Detroit and Gates, that connect the Willamette Valley through the Cascade Mountains to Central Oregon along Highway 22. Residents of the area emotionally testified in the 2023 trial that a wall of flame swept through the area in mere hours, destroying everything they owned. Oregonians at that trial said they felt trapped in the traumatic moment for years as they waited for compensation from the investor-owned utility.
Oregonians at that trial said they felt trapped in the traumatic moment for years as they waited for compensation from the investor-owned utility.
The $1 billion in liability for PacifiCorp may only be the beginning. That compensation has been awarded to roughly 145 plaintiffs, but another 1,500 are still awaiting their day in court as part of a class action lawsuit. Those trials will continue weekly this year (the company owed around $50 million in a verdict last week) and will continue through early 2028. Starting next year, the pace of damages trials will increase to twice weekly in Multnomah County.
PacifiCorp has sought to stop the financial bleeding by appealing the original case against it, arguing that the class action should not have been certified in the first place. That appeal remains ongoing.
The company has, in part, justified its opposition to the court decisions by pointing to an Oregon Department of Forestry report last year that found PacifiCorp wasn’t to blame for the Santiam Canyon Fire. That report placed the blame for the fire on another blaze, the Beachie Creek Fire, which had burned for weeks after lightning ignited it. During the 2023 trial against PacifiCorp, lawyers for the company argued that strong winds threw embers from the Beachie Creek fire and caused spot fires in the Santiam Canyon that would eventually burn hundreds of thousands of acres, raze towns and cost lives.
Costs for PacifiCorp related to the fires have rapidly mounted this year. Earlier this month, the company agreed to pay $575 million to the federal government to settle claims around the 2020 fires in Oregon, as well as two additional fires in California. The U.S. Department of Justice asserted in its lawsuit that the company was responsible for all six fires and cost the government substantially to fight those blazes.
PacifiCorp’s stock price faltered in the years immediately following the Oregon verdict ascribing its liability for the fires, but has rebounded over the past year. Earlier this month, the company agreed to a $1.9 billion deal to sell its Washington state assets to Portland General Electric. The deal, according to the Portland Business Journal, was the largest utility sale in Oregon since Berkshire Hathaway purchased PacifiCorp two decades earlier and will improve the company’s cashflow.
Oregon has estimated at least 11 people died in the fires, more than 1 million acres burned and around 4,000 homes were destroyed. The state tallied around half a million people were under some type of evacuation order during the harrowing weekend.