Copper Center fishing guide service pays nearly $1 million to settle federal suit over 2019 wildfire

A Copper Center fishing guide service and its employee agreed to pay $900,000 to the federal government to settle a lawsuit over costs from a wildfire that burned more than 175 acres in 2019.

The lawsuit was the first in Alaska that sought to recover costs from a human-caused wildfire, said Reagan Zimmerman, a spokeswoman for the Alaska district of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Similar cases have been litigated over liability for fires in other states.

The blaze took place during a summer that saw record heat and wildfires.

The July 2019 wildfire began after Joshua McDonald, a fishing guide employed by Grove’s Salmon Charters, started a campfire along the Klutina River during a burn ban due to dangerously dry conditions, according to a complaint filed in the case.

The guide service had received a permit to fish on lands owned by Alaska Native regional corporation Ahtna Inc., the complaint said. McDonald knew there was a burn suspension in place when he started a fire near the edge of the river, it said, and then failed to put it out before leaving.

A large wildfire reported in the area that evening grew more than 100 acres by the next day, the complaint said. In total, roughly 146 acres of Ahtna land was burned as well as 30 acres that belonged to the Bureau of Land Management, it said.

It cost roughly $1 million to suppress the fire, federal prosecutors said. An investigator later pinpointed the source of the fire and connected it to McDonald, the complaint said.

Federal prosecutors filed a notice in November indicating they planned to reach a settlement in the case and it was dismissed on Monday, according to online court records.

The law office representing McDonald and Grove’s Salmon Charters declined to comment on Wednesday.