By ZACH URNESS/Salem Statesman Journal

Oregon’s top fire official said he advised utilities to shut down power lines to reduce the threat of wildfire ignitions during a historic windstorm Labor Day night of 2020, just hours before the Santiam Canyon and much of western Oregon burst into flames.

In a deposition recorded earlier this month and provided to the court, former state chief of fire protection Doug Grafe said that during an 8 p.m. phone call Labor Day night he attempted to convince, but could not order, utilities, including PacifiCorp, to deenergize their lines.

The roughly 15-minute phone call, set up by former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s staff, has become the latest controversy in a high-stakes class action lawsuit that blames PacifiCorp for igniting four wildfires that burned thousands of homes.

Portland General Electric and Consumers Power Inc. proactively shut off power in some areas that night. PacifiCorp did not.

The trial is scheduled to begin April 24 in Multnomah County. Plaintiffs include owners of 2,500 properties burned in the Beachie Creek and Santiam Canyon fires, along with the Echo Mountain, 242 and South Obenchain fires.

What was communicated in the phone call is important because a key allegation in the plaintiffs’ case is that PacifiCorp was negligent for the fires, in part because it kept its lines live amid a historically powerful windstorm, in critical fire weather and against good judgment.

The plaintiffs are also arguing that PacifiCorp should be sanctioned for not disclosing the phone call in its evidence.

In court filings Thursday, PacifiCorp denied it was ever told or advised to shut down the lines.

Power shutdowns are typically planned in advance to give communities — including hospitals, grocery stores and vulnerable populations — time to prepare for such a dramatic action.

“On the Sept. 7 call no one … asked or encouraged PacifiCorp to conduct a (public safety power shutoff) or otherwise proactively shut off the grid,” Scott Bolton, former senior vice president of external affairs at PacifiCorp, said in court documents. “Nor did anyone from any Oregon state agency or office imply, much less strongly imply, that PacifiCorp should turn off the power proactively.”

What happened during the call?

At about 7:30 p.m. Sept. 7, 2020, Brown’s energy advisor, Kristen Sheeran, requested a phone call with representatives from PacifiCorp, PGE and the Bonneville Power Administration, along with various agency officials, including Grafe, and Brown’s chief of staff, Nik Blosser.

Grafe said in the deposition that the purpose of the call was twofold: to get power lines that were already down shut off so they could evacuate areas where wildfires were popping up; and to ensure “the decision makers at the power companies understood the gravity of the situation and were briefed so they could consider public safety power shutoffs. And I was curious of what the status of those were on their decisions.”

Bolton, according to court documents, said he thought the call was about the evolving storm event, fires and outages happening across Oregon.

In his deposition, Grafe said he didn’t have the legal authority to require the power companies to shut off their lines, but he said the message was conveyed that “turning power off would have decreased the potential for new ignitions.”

Bolton indicated that he didn’t get that message.

“Overall, I understood my role to be providing information and education to the government about the evolving weather and fire events and how they were impacting the electrical grid,” he said. “In my role as the liaison between the Governor’s Office and Pacific Power, the Governor’s Office has often made various requests to Pacific Power. These requests are typically direct and straightforward.”

By the end of the meeting, Grafe said in the deposition, he was discouraged. He said the power companies didn’t seem interested, or didn’t commit, to any shutoffs.

“I was hoping for a more proactive conversation about ‘These are the things we’re looking at, don’t worry, Doug, we’ve got this. We’re paying attention to this,’” Grafe said. “’Here’s our thresholds. Here’s what our data says about winds in different areas of the state and we’re considering power shutoff here.’ But the tone in the conversation was one way. ‘Where’s the fires? Where’s the threat? Can you show us that?’ I didn’t see a sense at that moment, right, at an evening call, that there was an active engagement and consideration ongoing of thresholds for public safety power shutoffs.”

Not in a power shut-off zone

Ultimately, PGE shut down power to about 5,000 homes in the Mount Hood corridor and Consumers Power Inc. shut down power in the Santiam Canyon.

PacifiCorp did not shut down power.

It said afterward that “communities in Santiam Canyon are not in its designated ‘Public Safety Power Shutoff area.'”

Downed power lines have been implicated in multiple places in the Labor Day fires. However, two and a half years after the fires, final investigation reports have not yet been released by the Oregon Department of Forestry and U.S. Forest Service on any of the Labor Day Fires included in this spring’s class action lawsuit.

In fact, all of the Labor Day Fires remain “under investigation” except southern Oregon’s Archie Creek Fire, which was determined to have been caused or likely caused by PacifiCorp equipment.