“The court takes judicial notice that the city of Omak, where the mill is located, is outside the town of Nespelem,” the ruling read.
The judge also said it didn’t matter that a BIA-managed fire center monitored the blaze and assisted in mop-ups.
Townsend Ranch and members of the Townsend family, who own the farm, sued the government in June 2023. They asserted that the BIA and Colville Tribal Federal Corp., a business arm of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, ignored warnings from employees of a nearby city and tribal fire department officials that a long-smoldering pile of forest scraps posed a significant wildfire risk.
According to the suit, the Interior Department and the BIA gave funding to the Confederated Tribes through two contracts to provide fire protection services on tribal land and manage a forestry program.
The tribal corporation owned land in Okanogan County, Washington, that housed the site of an old mill, which contained piles of smoldering leaves and tree limbs that the ranch insisted was the source of the wildfire after high winds swept through the area.
