(The Center Square) – The devastating fires in Spokane have resurrected talks about a wildfire victims fund in Washington state.
Legislation that would have created such a fund did not advance during the 2026 legislative session, but it could resurface this next year.
“Essentially, we would be asking the utilities to determine how best to put money aside in an account, to essentially create this prevention account, or this liability account that could be used then to make consumers, rate payers, and others whole when these fires happen,” said bill sponsor Kristine Reeves during an initial public hearing for House Bill 2275 during the previous session.
Critics say ratepayers end up seeing their power bills skyrocket, as exhibited by what happened with California’s fire victims fund.
The California Wildfire Fund was implemented in 2019. Customers of the state’s largest utilities pay more than $10.5 billion into a $21 billion fund collected through a monthly surcharge on power bills.
After HB 2275 was introduced, Rep. Mary Dye, R-Pomeroy, who serves as the ranking Republican on the House Environment & Energy Committee, told The Center Square Washington families are already paying an extra $400 a year on their utility bills because of the state’s Clean Energy Transformation Act and Climate Commitment Act.
“The amount that falls into this fund is infinite, and it becomes very attractive to people. And it becomes very attractive to law firms and ambulance chasers that can benefit from other people’s tragedies,” said Dye.
“If you follow the money, the people that are benefiting the most are lawyers, not the families and the people that have suffered losses,” he added.
One of those law firms benefitting in California is Singleton Schreiber.
The firm has offices in Spokane and The Center Square spoke with Singleton Schreiber attorney Rich Barker, who leads the firm’s Northwest wildfire work.
“Whenever there is a catastrophic wildfire, our firm is always proactively looking to identify who may be responsible and to investigate the cause of origin of that wildfire,” said Barker.
“When there are instances when a utility does ignite a wildfire and it devastates a community, those are cases where we want to be proactive on behalf of the survivors. It’s also important to hold the corporations accountable.”
There is no evidence at this point that Avista or any other utility company were responsible for any spread of the Spokane fires. At least one of the fires is blamed on arson, and a suspect is in custody.
Avista’s CEO Heather Rosentrater told investors Monday the wildfires did not start at any of the power company’s facilities.
“Our facilities were not involved in starting any of these fires in the Spokane area,” Rosentrater said. “We have restored service to customers whose outages were solely related to the public safety power shutoff.”
Still, Barker with Singleton Schreiber says they are on standby to advocate for any fire victims and he pushed back on the suggestion that big law firms are just trying to profit off the backs of victims.
“I would counter that notion that it’s the plaintiff’s lawyers that end up profiting off of a fund like this. It’s the members of our community who are tragically impacted by wildfires who get the benefit on that,” Barker said.