Colvilles file lawsuit against US for 2015 wildfire damages

The Colville Tribes filed a lawsuit last week against the United States, seeking damages related to the massive wildfires that burned more than 240,000 acres on the Colville Reservation in 2015.

“The Tribes alleged that the United States failed to maintain adequate forest health, through measures such as prescribed burning, which led to fires of unprecedented size and intensity,” a press release from the tribes explains.

In August 2015 the North Star and Tunk Block fires burned more than 590 square miles and 800 million board feet of timber, some 20% of the tribes’ commercial timber over a two-month period. 

That “remains the largest loss of board feet of timber of any fire event on any Indian reservation in recorded history,” the release states.

Apart from the loss of timber, the fires caused long term damage to cultural resources on the reservation.

“Tribal members hunt, fish, and gather food and medicine throughout the Colville Reservation,” Colville Business Council Chairman Andrew Joseph, Jr., said. “In many areas the fires burned so hot that they sterilized the soil and created a moonscape. It will take decades for our resources to completely recover in those areas.”

The lawsuit alleges that the United States breached a variety of fiduciary duties it owes the tribes under federal law, “including duties to adequately manage fuels and maintain forest health on the Colville Reservation,” the release states. “The Tribes also allege that the United States failed to provide adequate firefighting resources for the Colville Reservation by prioritizing off-reservation, non-trust property over the Tribes’ trust forests.”

It took more than three days for a federal incident management team to arrive after the 2015 fire started, the suit alleges, leaving local firefighters to battle it, the Spokane Chronicle online newsletter reports. “The Tunk Block Fire started a day later and crossed onto the reservation from state and federal land. Both fires spread rapidly on the reservation through fuels including dense forest, dry grass and logging slash.”

Joseph said the deficiencies in the government’s preparation and response to the 2015 fires have not been addressed, and the Colville Tribes remains gravely concerned about ongoing and future wildfires on the Colville Reservation.

Multiple active fires are currently burning on the Colville Reservation, including the Chuweah Creek fire which has burned 36,750 acres, the Summit Trail fire which has burned 28,250, and the Whitmore Fire which has burned 56,000 acres.

“We hope this lawsuit will result in the Department of the Interior finally living up to its trust

responsibilities to the Colville Tribes,” Joseph said.