A federal judge has thrown out an Oregon timber company’s lawsuit faulting the U.S. Forest Service for allegedly allowing the spread of a devastating 2020 wildfire.

The negligence complaint filed by Freres Timber of Lyons, Ore., must be dismissed because it challenges discretionary firefighting decisions for which the government can’t be held liable, according to U.S. District Judge Michael McShane.

Though the Forest Service was operating under an official directive to fully suppress the Beachie Creek Fire, the exact methods were still up to the agency, the judge said.

“Specific choices regarding the implementation of that directive are left to the firefighters,” he said. “No language in the decision prescribes a specific method of suppression, imposes a specific time constraint in which to accomplish full suppression, or, more pointedly, compels the Forest Service to make a specific number of drops with a specified number of helicopters.”

Under federal law, U.S. government officials can be held liable for negligence and similar claims if they fail to carry out required actions, but not for certain discretionary decisions based on policy considerations.

In this case, Freres Lumber alleged the Forest Service was required to maximize its response to the Beachie Creek Fire based on a formal “full suppression” directive and official agency fire management policy.

Plaintiff’s claim

The complaint accused the agency of falling short of its obligations by failing to “sufficiently utilize helicopters that were available” in early August 2020, when the blaze was still relatively small.

Within a month, “foreseeable fire weather conditions shifted drastically,” with high winds causing the wildfire to “explode” by consuming dry forest fuels in the Cascade Range, according to the lawsuit, which was filed earlier this year.

“As a result of the Forest Service’s negligent failure to follow its own mandated fire attack plan, the Beachie Creek Fire grew from a smoldering 3.5 acres into a firestorm that ultimately destroyed nearly 200,000 acres, took six lives, and dramatically changed the landscape of the Willamette National Forest,” the complaint said.

As a result of agency helicopters “sitting idle on the ground,” Freres Timber claimed that 7,000 acres of its privately owned 17,000 acres in the region were “heavily damaged or destroyed” by the fire.

Meanwhile, its affiliated lumber company lost about $3 million in profits because it was unable to process logs from federal timber sales that burned in the fire, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint sought compensation for an estimated $33 million in damages that Freres Timber allegedly sustained from the blaze.

Judge’s ruling

In his ruling, the judge noted that Forest Service crews kept the fire below 500 acres until high winds in early September 2020 blew over power lines, igniting additional blazes that were ultimately “swallowed” by the Beachie Creek Fire.

Firefighters were forced to evacuate a nearby command post as the “aggressively spreading” blaze soon merged with another major wildfire, leading to large-scale destruction in the Santiam Canyon, he said.

The judge said the lawsuit’s characterization of the “full suppression” directive was “plainly wrong” and its insinuation the Forest Service was idle during the fire was “dramatically unfair.”

The directive did not require a specific number of helicopter water drops in a specific time frame, which was instead guided by “judgment calls” at the discretion of firefighters, the judge said.

The existence of mandatory fire suppression language does not eliminate the agency’s discretion, as there’s no policy mandating “water drops at a definite pace or quantity,” he said.

“In this setting, the consequences of plaintiff’s argument reveal its senselessness,” McShane said. “If plaintiffs were correct, anytime the Forest Service elected ‘full suppression’ as the best course of action, they would be compelled to conduct constant water drops from all available helicopters — regardless of visibility or inclement weather, irrespective of landscape, absent considerations of safety, and completely untethered to changes in resource scarcity.”

The judge also rejected the argument the Forest Service violated its policy against using wildfire as a “natural resource management tool” in risky circumstances.

The plaintiffs have a “lack of any proof” the agency had improperly allowed the Beachie Creek Fire to burn for “natural resource purposes,” he said.

The thrust of the lawsuit is that the Forest Service missed its chance to extinguish the blaze in its early stages, which conflicts with Freres Lumber’s “vision of the best course of action,” McShane said.

“Plaintiffs may be right,” he said. “But lacking the insight and expertise of the Forest Service, plaintiffs are ill-positioned to make that judgment call.”