Regardless of the ignition source, the U.S. government isn’t liable for a fire that caused $47 million in damages to a Washington state ranch, a federal judge has ruled.

Federal contracts didn’t make the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs responsible for the failure to suppress a blaze the Townsend ranch family claims originated at a tribe-owned mill, the ruling said.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the federal agency last year by Townsend family members and companies, who sought compensation for 8,200 acres of their property that burned in a September 2020 fire in Okanogan County.

The Townsends claimed a slash pile had been left smoldering at an old mill site owned by a tribal corporation, eventually flaring up and spreading onto their pastures, forests and crops.

Their lawsuit argued the slash pile resulted from tribal logging operations for which the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, and thus the federal government, was ultimately responsible.

The agency countered that damage to the Townsend property was actually caused by another fire, ignited by an arsonist a day earlier, which expanded to the old mill site.

However, the judge has determined the tribe wasn’t required to suppress the mill site fire under forest management and fire fighting contracts with the federal agency.

As a result, the BIA cannot be held liable for the Townsend burn damage, he said.

“The fact that the forest management contract includes a general mandate to the Confederated Tribes to maintain and protect forestland does not necessarily implicate a specific duty to protect the privately held and developed mill property,” the ruling said.

The old mill site was privately owned by a corporate entity controlled by the tribe, but the property was not directly held in trust for the tribe by the U.S. government, nor did the corporation directly contract with the BIA for forest or fire services, he said.

Also, the mill site was under the sole jurisdiction of a local fire district, even if the BIA’s firefighters were allowed to help mop up after the fire, the judge said.

Since the tribe and the federal agency didn’t have a contractual duty to monitor the slash pile, it’s irrelevant whether it caused the damage to Townsend property or whether another blaze was to blame, the ruling said.

According to the plaintiffs, high winds aggravated the smoldering slash pile and sent embers onto nearby grassy fuels, ultimately destroying roughly 4,100 acres of their grazing land, 2,800 acres of their forestland, and 1,300 acres of their crops.

The lawsuit also claimed the blaze consumed the family’s machinery, equipment, structures, livestock, feed and fencing, disrupting their business operations and restoration work.

According to BIA, the ranch family’s lawsuit “distorted” the reality of wildfire activity at the time, as the slash pile was originally set aflame during to an earlier fire, ignited by squatters that summer, and was still smoldering despite the best efforts of firefighters.

Later, an arsonist started several blazes in the area that grew into the Cold Springs Fire, which engulfed the slash pile as well as the Townsend property, the agency claimed.

The wildfire eventually jumped the Columbia River and started the Pearl Hill Fire, which together with the original blaze burned more than 400,000 acres.