Company sues PG&E over 2021 Dixie fire
A timber company is suing Pacific Gas and Electric Co. for $225 million in damages from the 2021 Dixie Fire, a nearly million-acre blaze ignited by utility power lines.
Collins Pine Co. said that the wildfire burned across 55,000 acres of unique Sierra Nevada timberland managed like natural forests with protected habitat and trees of all ages, killing an estimated 65,000 old-growth trees and leaving behind inhospitable, sterilized soils.
In a seven-count complaint filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court, Collins Pine and affiliated companies said PG&E’s negligence cost them upward of $183 million in damages from lost timber, destroyed roads and other infrastructure. They say they sustained another $45 million in damages at the company’s mill in Chester (Plumas County), which has had to secure new timber from far-flung sources.
“The day before this fire went through, you had trees ranging in age from seedlings to trees that were in excess of 200 years old,” said Tom Insko, Collins Pine president and chief executive officer. “It will take 80 to 120 years to get that timber back.”
PG&E, which admitted
its power lines ignited the Dixie Fire, said the company hasn’t yet been served with the complaint and, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Earlier this year, the California Public Utilities Commission assessed PG&E $45 million in fines for state law violations in the Dixie Fire.
The Dixie Fire ignited on July 13, 2021, when a weakened tree fell onto remote power lines in Butte County. Though PG&E systems quickly detected the problem, the lines remained energized for at least another 10 hours until an employee reached the area and reported seeing flames. Cal Fire investigators
said PG&E’s delay was “a direct and negligent factor in the ignition of the fire.” The investorowned utility also failed to detect the hazardous tree, which was visibly damaged from an earlier fire, records show.
The fire raged for 31⁄2 months, burning 963,309 acres in five counties —
Butte, Plumas, Shasta, Lassen and Tehama — and left behind an overwhelming number of dead trees. Many of these acres were commercial forests, national forest lands and rural communities. The Gold Rush town of Greenville was all but destroyed. Fire charred portions of the Pacific Crest Trail.
Collins Pine and affiliated companies sued PG&E after the parties failed to reach a settlement through mediation.
Collins Pine and related groups own about 94,000 acres in Collins Almanor Forest in Plumas and Tehama counties. Founded in 1855, the Oregon-based company pioneered sustainable timber harvesting more than a century ago, and its diverse forests stand apart from the uniform plantations grown on other commercial timberlands.
Some of the forest’s revenues benefit Wespath Forests LLC, a nonprofit agency of the United Methodist Church that provides retirement, health and welfare benefits for missionaries. Lost revenues could hamper the group’s ability to meet those benefit obligations, Insko said.
Insko said PG&E’s failure to identify the tree or de-energize the power lines ruined his company’s carefully crafted 100year-plan and caused “immeasurable” harm to watersheds and forest ecosystems.
“You’re talking about things we can’t restore in our lifetimes,” Insko said.