The Holiday Farm Fire lawsuit is a consolidated set of federal cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon accusing the Bonneville Power Administration, the Eugene Water & Electric Board, and Lane Electric Cooperative of causing the September 2020 fire by failing to remove a hazardous tree near a transmission line and by keeping power lines energized during a red-flag windstorm. As of mid-2026, the case is moving toward a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai after he rejected part of the federal government’s immunity defense and sanctioned BPA for destroying evidence at the ignition site.1
Who Is Suing and What They Want
Three lawsuits have been consolidated before Judge Kasubhai under lead case number 6:24-cv-00089-MTK. All three name the same core defendants: the United States (through BPA), EWEB, and Lane Electric Cooperative.
The first, Adams v. Bonneville Power Administration, was filed on January 16, 2024, on behalf of 238 fire survivors, including individuals, minors, businesses, and family trusts. The Adams plaintiffs are seeking $232 million for property loss, diminished property values, and physical and emotional harm. Attorney Robert Curtis of Foley Bezek Behle & Curtis represents them.
The second case, filed the same day, is an insurance subrogation action brought by roughly 60 carriers that paid claims to policyholders and now want to recover those payouts. 21st Century Centennial Insurance Company is the lead plaintiff.
The third, filed July 15, 2024, was brought by Giustina Land and Timber, Giustina Tree Farms Limited Partnership, Giustina Woodlands Limited Partnership, and Cadore Timber. They allege the fire destroyed merchantable timber, growing trees, and roads across roughly 10 percent of the fire’s footprint, and they are seeking $68.9 million, a figure their attorneys have said could double under certain Oregon statutes. The Giustina complaint adds trespass and nuisance claims alongside negligence.
A separate action was also filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in September 2023. Because BPA is a federal agency, the claims against the United States will be decided by Judge Kasubhai in a bench trial rather than by a jury.
What the Plaintiffs Allege Caused the Fire
A U.S. Forest Service investigation traced the blaze to two ignitions along Oregon Highway 126 that later merged. Near McKenzie Bridge, a tree fell onto a de-energized EWEB line and pushed it into an energized Lane Electric line, electrifying the entire EWEB circuit and igniting vegetation. Six miles west, near milepost 41, a separate tree fell onto BPA’s Cougar-Holden transmission line and forced it to the ground. Once the EWEB line was energized, it carried electricity to the downed BPA line, sparking a second fire that joined the first.
The lawsuits build two theories from those facts. The first is a “danger tree” theory aimed at BPA. Plaintiffs allege that BPA’s internal vegetation management policy required crews to evaluate trees near, but outside, the right-of-way with a 50 percent or greater probability of structural failure within five years, and to schedule removal. The tree that fell onto the Cougar-Holden line, they contend, should have been flagged and taken down long before the Labor Day 2020 windstorm.
The second theory targets operational choices during the storm itself. The National Weather Service had issued a fire weather watch for Lane County on September 4, warning of sustained winds, gusts over 50 miles per hour, low humidity, and dry fuels. Plaintiffs allege the utilities should have de-energized their lines before or during the windstorm. When a tree first struck BPA’s high-voltage line, the agency allegedly recognized the contact but chose not to act immediately, planning to patrol the area the next day. EWEB, meanwhile, allegedly took at least an hour and 20 minutes to confirm to emergency workers that downed lines had been de-energized, delaying firefighting.
How the Judge Ruled on Federal Immunity
The federal government’s central defense rests on the “discretionary function exception” to the Federal Tort Claims Act, which shields the United States from liability when its employees make judgment calls grounded in public policy. BPA argued that both its vegetation management and its power-line operations fell within that exception and that the court lacked jurisdiction over the negligence claims.
In a February 11, 2026, ruling, Judge Kasubhai split the two theories. He denied the motion to dismiss the danger-tree claims, finding that identifying and removing hazardous trees is “routine maintenance” governed by mandatory internal standards rather than the kind of policy balancing the exception protects. He pointed to BPA’s own vegetation management policy, which set specific technical criteria for evaluating tree risk, and concluded that applying those criteria does not involve social, economic, or political judgments.
He reached the opposite conclusion on the de-energization claims. BPA’s “Good Utility Practice” standard requires dispatchers to exercise reasonable judgment and to balance grid reliability, public safety, cost, and operational continuity. Because that balancing is “susceptible to policy analysis,” the judge ruled the decision to keep lines running is discretionary and immune from suit. Those claims were dismissed with prejudice.
On April 13, 2026, government attorneys asked Judge Kasubhai to certify an interlocutory appeal of the danger-tree ruling. They argued he had not adequately considered a 2020 precedent they believe extends discretionary-function protection to tree-removal decisions, and that appellate review could avoid the “enormous” costs of ongoing discovery. That motion remains pending.
Sanctions Against BPA for Destroying Evidence
In a 27-page ruling issued February 26, 2026, Judge Kasubhai found that BPA “willfully spoiled evidence” at the fire’s ignition site.
The Forest Service began investigating the cause on September 9, 2020, and asked BPA to preserve the ignition area. A formal preservation notice followed on September 12 or 13. Despite those requests, BPA crews moved multiple trees, including one designated “Tree #1” that investigators believed had caused the transmission line to fall, and allowed contractors to use heavy machinery at the site. When Forest Service officials arrived on September 13, trees had already been cut into pieces. By September 20, after a rain delay, investigators found that Tree #1 had been moved by “unauthorized persons.” The disturbance prevented the Forest Service from completing a planned 3D laser scan of the area in its original post-fire condition.
Electronic records fared no better. BPA failed to instruct its contractors to preserve documentation related to work at the ignition site, and those contractors deleted the records. During discovery, BPA produced 16,000 documents, including invoices for hand sanitizer, while omitting key records that had been specifically requested. A BPA witness appeared for a deposition unable to answer 122 questions about the agency’s recordkeeping policies, conduct Judge Kasubhai called “insolence” and “abuse of the judicial process.”
An internal BPA communication that surfaced during the proceedings acknowledged the stakes plainly: “There is a significant liability concern for BPA if any of our actions or equipment can be associated with the cause of any of these devastating fires.”
As sanctions, Judge Kasubhai imposed an adverse inference, meaning the court will presume at trial that the destroyed evidence would have been unfavorable to BPA. Federal attorneys are also barred from arguing that the missing physical evidence supports their defense. The government was ordered to pay the plaintiffs’ attorney fees tied to the spoliation motion and to comply with strict new discovery deadlines.
What Happens Next
Two things now shape the road to trial. The adverse-inference sanction will follow BPA into the courtroom on the danger-tree claims that survived immunity review. And the government’s pending request for an interlocutory appeal, if granted, could pause the case while a higher court reviews whether tree-removal decisions are shielded by the discretionary function exception. If the appeal is denied or the ruling is affirmed, the negligence claims against the United States will proceed to a bench trial before Judge Kasubhai. The claims against EWEB and Lane Electric are not covered by federal sovereign immunity and continue alongside the federal claims in the consolidated case.
How This Case Differs From Other 2020 Oregon Fire Suits
The Holiday Farm Fire was one of five megafires that erupted across Oregon during the Labor Day 2020 windstorm, but its litigation stands apart because it targets a federal agency. PacifiCorp, which operates as Pacific Power in Oregon, has faced the heaviest financial reckoning from that fire season: a Multnomah County jury found the company negligent in a 2023 test case and awarded $90 million to 17 property owners, and by February 2026 PacifiCorp had agreed to pay $575 million to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle federal claims tied to six wildfires and roughly $2.2 billion overall to resolve nearly 90 percent of known claims. PacifiCorp continues to deny liability and is defending claims related to the Beachie Creek and Santiam Canyon fires. Those PacifiCorp cases do not involve the Holiday Farm Fire, and the sovereign-immunity questions driving the BPA litigation do not apply to them.