Berkshire Hathaway Energy Co.’s PacifiCorp said it will pay $299 million to settle claims over wildfires that burned homes in southwest Oregon, averting another jury trial in litigation that has already exposed the utility to billions in damages, Bloomberg News reported. The accord, disclosed Tuesday in a regulatory filing, will resolve claims by homeowners that the utility’s equipment was responsible for ignitions around Labor Day 2020 in Douglas County that burned more than 131,000 acres and destroyed more than 100 residences. The settlement doesn’t address claims by insurers and by several timber companies over lost trees. A trial in that case is set for Jan. 30. Investigations by federal agencies concluded that power lines operated by a PacifiCorp unit probably caused the blazes, now known as the Archie Creek Fire. PacifiCorp — which touts itself as the largest grid operator in the western U.S. — has been battered by lawsuits claiming the company failed to heed hazardous weather warnings and shut off power in its service areas before toppled power lines ignited fires. In a trial targeting PacifiCorp over a different group of fires in the state on the same 2020 weekend, a state-court jury in Portland in June awarded $90 million to a group of 17 property owners — and paved the way for thousands of other residents to potentially seek billions more damages in early 2024.
