Victims of the McKinney Fire that destroyed homes and killed four people in Siskiyou County have sued the Oregon-based utility company providing power in far Northern California, claiming PacifiCorp powerlines sparked the fire.

While fire investigators with the United States Forest Service remain tight lipped about what caused the blaze, the lawsuit argues power equipment is to blame. The fire ignited July 29 at a time of dangerous fire weather in a rural area by McKinney Creek near Klamath River, an unincorporated community on Highway 96 in Siskiyou County.

Tom Gauntt, a spokesperson for PacifiCorp, declined to answer questions about the McKinney Fire and said the lawsuit prevented the company from discussing the matter.

PacifiCorp, which operates as Pacific Power in California, filed a report with the California Public Utilities Commission six days after the fire started, alerting regulators that its equipment was in the area of a fire. The company did not report any problems with its equipment to state regulators. Drew Hanson, another spokesman for PacifiCorp, told the Chronicle on Aug. 3 that “we are not aware of any equipment being collected for an investigation related to the McKinney Fire.”

Attorney Gerald Singleton said his firm’s investigator reported that overhead power lines were the only human infrastructure in the remote forested area where the fire started — no roads, structures or campsites. His San Diego-based firm, Singleton Schreiber, is representing about 25 property owners with losses from the fire.

“There’s nothing anyone has seen that would lead us to believe that the McKinney Fire started with anything other than power lines,” Singleton said.

A 911 caller reported the first flames of the McKinney Fire just before 2:15 p.m. on July 29. Emergency dispatch audio from some of the first fire units on scene describe the early flames. “About a quarter acre …. right now putting water on it … it is underneath the power line right-of-way,” a firefighter reported over the radio at about 2:30 p.m.

Singleton said his firm’s investigator was informed that the Forest Service collected power equipment from the origin site as evidence. He said they will request access to inspect the equipment in the course of civil litigation proceedings.

Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson for the Forest Service, said the agency’s investigators were still determining how the fire started and were working with assistance from the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office. Freeman declined to say whether any power equipment had been collected as potential evidence.

The lawsuit alleges PacifiCorp was negligent in its maintenance, operation and inspection of its power lines and names another 2020 wildfire in California that spurred a lawsuit blaming PacifiCorp for the destruction: the Slater Fire that burned 157,229 acres and killed two people in the Klamath National Forest. The cause of that fire is still under investigation. PacifiCorp did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Slater Fire.

The McKinney Fire has burned 60,392 acres and is 95% contained. The blaze destroyed at least 196 structures. Those killed include longtime U.S. Forest Service fire lookout Kathy Shoopman.

Julie Johnson (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: julie.johnson@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @juliejohnson

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It was raining in San Francisco on Wednesday morning when volunteer Shanna Orona arrived at a homeless encampment on Erie Street surrounded by police vehicles.

As rain fell — the approach of the powerful “atmospheric river” that would slam California cities with heavy winds and flooding — city workers, including police and fire department personnel, cleared out the encampment so they could power-wash the street, Orona alleged in a court document.

The individuals at the encampment left without receiving “concrete” offers of shelter after a fire department commander threatened that police would arrive to conduct warrant checks and other city workers would throw away people’s belongings, said Orona, who volunteers with the Coalition on Homelessness, a San Francisco nonprofit. When one person from the encampment responded to the fire department commander in Spanish, the commander allegedly turned away, saying, “I don’t speak Mexican.”

The Jan. 4 sweep Orona witnessed was not only inhumane but also violated the orders of a California district court, attorneys representing the Coalition on Homelessness argued in court documents filed Thursday.

On Dec 23, the Coalition on Homelessness won a preliminary injunction in an ongoing court case against the city of San Francisco, successfully arguing that it was unconstitutional for the city to enforce certain laws penalizing unhoused individuals while the city lacks sufficient shelter space to house them. The court order forbids the city from enforcing various laws prohibiting “involuntarily homeless individuals” from sitting, lying or sleeping on public property.

But San Francisco isn’t listening, the coalition alleged last week.

The group filed statements from several staff members and volunteers, including Orona, who alleged that the city violated the injunction by conducting several sweeps of homeless encampments in late December and early January, even as the devastating storm neared.

“I was very taken back,” Orona told The Washington Post. “I was like, the city has a lot of nerves.”

A spokesperson for the city attorney’s office told The Post in a statement that the activities described by the coalition did not violate the injunction.

“The order prohibits the City from enforcing six specific laws to prevent involuntarily homeless individuals from sitting, lying, or sleeping on public property,” the city attorney’s office said in the statement. “The order does not prohibit the City from maintaining safe and healthy streets for all. The City may continue to ensure sidewalks are not obstructed, but are usable for everyone. And, the City may still ask unhoused people to move temporarily for cleaning activities.”

In court filings, attorneys for the coalition contested that characterization, alleging that individuals were still threatened with the confiscation of tents and other personal belongings, which the injunction forbids, and that city workers’ behavior — threatening warrant checks and “forcibly waking people up, standing over them, and yelling at them to move” — still constituted an enforcement threat. They also questioned why the city moved unhoused residents to power-wash a street during a storm.

The timing of the newest wave of sweeps, coming shortly after the injunction was issued and as a powerful storm prepared to batter the city, came as a shock to the coalition, executive director Jennifer Friedenbach told The Post.

“My experience is that the city kind of backs off on these things during bad weather,” Friedenbach said. “It was a bit shocking to see them continue these operations in the pouring down rain.”

John Do, an attorney representing the coalition, echoed Friedenbach’s concerns.

“Your survival gear, your personal belongings shouldn’t be taken by the city and thrown away,” Do said. “And certainly not in an atmospheric river. That is truly inhumane and cruel.”

As of Monday, 11.16 inches of rain had fallen on San Francisco in a 13-day stretch, the wettest spell since 1871. The city remains on flood watch, and residents have been advised to stay home.

Additional storms have been forecast in the coming week. In response to the weather, San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing opened four temporary shelters accepting walk-up referrals that will run until Jan. 15.

Strongest atmospheric river yet battering California with damaging floods

The allegations surrounding the pre-storm sweeps are the latest development in a months-long court case challenging San Francisco’s handling of a persistent homelessness crisis exacerbated by the pandemic. In September, the Coalition on Homelessness and seven unhoused individuals sued the city and county of San Francisco, Mayor London Breed and several city departments to stop the city from enforcing several laws that criminalize sitting, sleeping or lying on public property.

The coalition argued in a 100-page complaint that because San Francisco lacks enough shelter space to house the majority of the city’s unhoused population, sweeping encampments and displacing individuals under threat of arrest amounts to cruel and unusual punishment that violates people’s constitutional rights. The nonprofit also alleged that city workers routinely violated a “bag and tag” policy that is supposed to allow displaced individuals to retrieve belongings seized during encampment sweeps, saying workers repeatedly dispose of them instead.

In the complaint, Toro Castaño, a plaintiff with the coalition, called the city’s sweeps a “dehumanizing disruption to the small ounce of stability I was trying to build for myself during one of the hardest times of my life.”

As issued, the preliminary injunction remains effective for the duration of the case, as long as there are more homeless individuals in San Francisco than shelter beds available. San Francisco had a total capacity of 5,080 shelter beds in 2022, including around 2,000 temporary beds scheduled to be phased out by the end of that year, according to city statistics cited by the coalition, while 7,754 people were counted in the most recent survey of the city’s unhoused population.

The city filed a motion for clarification on the injunction last week, arguing that the restrictions within are unreasonable and contradicting an injunction in a separate case on homelessness that mandated the city remove unhoused individuals who’d refused offers of shelter in the city’s Tenderloin district.

“It defies logic to require that San Francisco have shelter for all persons experiencing homelessness before San Francisco may enforce these laws against any one person, even after that individual has refused adequate shelter,” the city attorney’s office told The Post. According to the city, providing the required shelter beds and services would take several years and cost an additional $1.45 billion.

In their recent filings, attorneys for the coalition asked the court to mandate the city provide additional information about sweeps and appoint a special master to monitor the city’s compliance with the preliminary injunction. The lawsuit broadly asks for the city to submit to greater oversight over sweeps and for the court to establish a similar, permanent injunction until all of San Francisco’s unhoused residents have access to shelter.

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday, when a judge may address both the coalition’s allegations and the city’s motion for clarification.

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SAN RAFAEL (CBS SF) – After suffering a stroke in January, a 79-year-old grandmother was placed in the care of the Smith Ranch Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in San Rafael.

The family says she was abused and neglected during her two week stay. Photos and videos provided by the KPIX 5 family show bruising on one of the patient’s arms.

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The family says it was in the hands of an employee who hit her grandmother with a call light button.

“It was extremely heartbreaking because I know my grandmother is paralyzed on the left side of her body and she cannot move on her own,” said granddaughter Virginie Huang. “So she can’t defend herself if someone hits her.”

Huang says when her mother reported it to the facility, staff suggested that the patient may have caused her own injuries.

Her grandmother spoke in Cantonese on a cell phone video and told how the nurse hit her. She suffered injuries to her only working arm, making it difficult for the family to believe that she had beaten herself.

Huang says there were other negligent incidents during her grandmother’s brief stay, including three falls from her bed.

“She crawled over to a closet and started beating it. She said ‘Help me, help me’ and no one came for over an hour,” she said.

Huang added that her grandmother was also given boiling water to drink.

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At the very least, the family wants an apology and the responsible staff to be held accountable.

“I just wish none of this had ever happened and people weren’t so angry,” said Huang.

A statement from the Smith Ranch Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center reads:

“The Smith Ranch Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center is dedicated to providing high quality care for the health, wellbeing and safety of all of its residents. We do not tolerate any form of abuse. All Smith Ranch employees are statutory reporters and receive ongoing training in abuse prevention, identification, and appropriate response to allegations of abuse. All abuse allegations are thoroughly investigated and reported to the relevant authorities. Due to data protection laws and respect for our residents and employees, we are unable to comment on specific allegations. “

KPIX 5 also contacted the San Rafael Police Department. Your statement reads:

“The San Rafael Police Department takes reports of this kind very seriously. We have assigned a detective to this case to investigate all aspects of the case. We will also work with Adult Protective Services and the Ombudsman to utilize all the resources available to us. If we can determine that we have a likely cause for arrest in this case, it will happen. “

“The reason people should care is because it can happen to anyone, any grandparent, any parent, or even you if you are older,” Huang said. “And it’s a terrible, disgusting thing.”

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The family says they have since moved their grandmother to a care facility in San Francisco. So far, she’s doing better mentally and physically.

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