SALEM — A new filing in a negligence lawsuit against PacifiCorp over last year’s Labor Day fires cites “confidential” internal emails from utility employees saying its equipment was involved or may have been involved in five of the Labor Day 2020 conflagrations that ravaged communities around the state amid a severe windstorm and extreme fire conditions.

Emails obtained in the lawsuit’s ongoing discovery process also show in the days before the fire, the utility’s contract meteorologist was issuing dire warnings to the company about conditions likely to play out over Labor Day.

“The bottom line is that we haven’t seen a[n] east wind event like this since maybe the event that started the Kincade fire in Sonoma and produced the 100+ mph wind gusts on (California utility) PG&E’s stations here last year,” Will Farr of the Western Weather Group told a PacifiCorp data scientist via email three days before Labor Day.

Asked by the company if he was erring on the side of caution, the meteorologist responded: “If anything, it’s conservative. I just went through every event over the last 2 years and couldn’t find anything like this one.”

Those forecasts circulated to the highest levels of the company, though it’s not clear what impact they had on utility executives’ decision making. Unlike other utilities in Oregon and California, Portland-based PacifiCorp did not proactively de-energize its power lines to reduce the risk of ignitions.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, who obtained the company’s internal documentation, this week filed for class action status in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeking to establish a single lawsuit that some 2,500 property owners affected by four of the Labor Day fires could participate in unless they to choose to opt out.

The lawsuit alleges PacifiCorp’s equipment was at least partially responsible for fires that devastated communities in the Santiam Canyon, the Echo Mountain Complex near Otis, the 242 fire near Chiloquin and the South Obenchain fire near Eagle Point.