Parker Ranch sued over 2021 fire

A group of Hawaiian Homestead leaseholders is suing Parker Ranch for losses suffered as a result of a 2021 fire ignited by work on the private ranch’s land that ultimately grew to become the largest wildland fire in state history.

“It’s a very unusual thing for homestead families to go to court at all, and particularly to take on a big entity like Parker Ranch. This is not something that they do willingly or happily at all. They are very sad that it has come to this,” said Jim Bickerton, of Bickerton Group LLLP, who along with Big Island-based Olson &Sons, Attorneys at Law, is representing the eight plaintiffs in the litigation against Parker Ranch Inc., Parker Ranch Foundation Trust, PR Mauna Kea LLC the contractor, K II K Service Inc.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Kona Circuit Court alleges that on July 30, 2021 — an extremely dry and windy day in Waimea — Parker Ranch contractor K II K Service Inc. was constructing metal fencing on the ranch’s land but was using a metal saw, and doing so without required safety protections, like a nearby water supply.

Sparks from the sawing of metal ignited a fire that started slowly to spread, the lawsuit claims. While the blaze remained on Parker Ranch’s land for more than a day, the plaintiffs allege that Parker Ranch failed to suppress or contain it.

As a result, the lawsuit alleges, flames escaped from Parker Ranch land and burned several hundred acres of the plaintiffs’ lands, including the soil, fencing, farming equipment, vehicles, and even one of their homes.

Ultimately, the fire scorched more than 40,000 acres before containment was gained about a week later. The blaze also prompted Hawaii County to evacuate the 6,000-plus residents of Waikoloa Village as the fire burned out of control on Aug. 1, 2021.

A Hawaii Fire Department report states that the fire was ignited during work on Parker Ranch land amid 50 mph winds, according to the attorneys.

Parker Ranch did not respond to a request for comment regarding the litigation as of press-time Thursday.

The plaintiffs are Parker Ranch’s “neighbors, hardworking ranchers and Hawaiian homesteaders who care deeply about the lands they live on and work daily,” according to the attorneys representing homesteaders Jason Mattos and April Wana, Joshua and Brandi Kihe, Penny and Bertrand Miranda, Kaikane Parker, Rodney Tarpley and Janine Sills, Nicole and Brand Kepano and Ricki Niau. In total, the plaintiffs hold lease over 685 acres in the area.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys said Thursday that the lawsuit comes after Parker Ranch had neither apologized nor acknowledged publicly that the fire started on its land, according to the attorneys.

“Even 17 months after the fire, we are living and dealing every day with its effects. We have no vegetation, trees or windbreaks to break up or filter the wind and dust. People in town can see those big dust storms up on the hill; we are directly in line of those storms,” lifelong Waimea resident and plaintiff Nicole Kepano said in a prepared statement. “What tugs at my heart is that we are people of Waimea. We are farmers, we are ranchers, and just like Parker Ranch, we are stewards of this land. The difference is, we are not wealthy people. We are regular people who poured our blood, sweat, tears, heart and soul into this land for our families and for this community.”

Instead, Parker Ranch “is trying to blame their contractor, even though OSHA laws and other regulations make it clear that it’s the landowner that’s got to protect against the fire risks. They’re trying to blame their contractor, and they hired a contractor that had very little insurance. So, the alternative of course, is to look to Parker Ranch and its insurance, but they have not stepped up to the plate,” said Bickerton.

The litigation also comes after failed mediation, Bickerton added.

“The problem in the mediation is that Parker Ranch doesn’t want to accept responsibility for the damage to the soil itself,” he said. “They’re willing to say, ‘OK, we know some fence got burned,’ but this idea that the soil — the structure of the soil root systems and the soil itself — has been damaged, is one they don’t want to own up to or acknowledge because it costs a lot of money.”

The 2021 fire resulted in catastrophic and permanent damage to the land because of the heat and intensity of the fire, according to Bickerton, who explained that grass systems live above and below the soil with root systems that are able to survive dry times and quickly regrow when rains return. “This fire was so intense that it burned underground. … It’s actually affected the soil itself and destroyed the root system.

… “The result of this is that it’s essentially a ‘dust bowl,’ and these homesteaders who lived in beautiful green pastures before now live in a ‘dust bowl.’ The dust swirls around and billows. Everyday, people in Waimea town can look up the hill and see these long plumes and clouds of dust storms,” Bickerton continued.

Those dust storms seen by many from a distance are what the plaintiffs are dealing with every day, the attorneys said.

“They live inside those storms. That’s what they deal with and ‘they’ includes small children and family members. Livestock can’t eat the grass, there’s no grass to be eaten; their livelihoods are destroyed,” Bickerton said. “Their family life, peace of mind the whole situation that they lived happily in for years is gone.

“And we’re now 17 months post fire, and (the grass) hasn’t come back. So they need help, and they need it soon. And so we are making this lawsuit. We’re starting this lawsuit today to get them that help,” said Bickerton.

It’s estimated to cost upward of $80,000 per acre to remediate the soil, according to Bickerton. Just 500 acres could cost $40 million with the full 685 acres leased by the plaintiffs reaching nearly $55 million, if approved by a court.

“If we can’t remediate every single square inch of that land, we’ll remediate what needs to be remediated so that folks can make a living. Basically, you’ve got to replace the topsoil and that costs money — a lot of money,” said Bickerton. “That’s precisely why you have to be so careful with fire. You just can’t. This isn’t like a house fire that just destroys a single structure — once a grass fire gets going, it can destroy hundreds of thousands of acres.”

Further damages will be sought for losses incurred by the plaintiffs beyond the soil loss.

“We are looking at losses far beyond just soil. A lot of our clients have had to get jobs in Hilo, they have to commute to Hilo now. They’ve lost income, they’ve lost expected income. Their health is affected, and they have doctor bills. There are a lot of losses and damages that relate to this fire that have nothing to do with the soil,” Attorney Bridget G. Morgan-Bickerton, who is also representing the plaintiffs.

That could mean a potential settlement of over $100 million — but according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, getting all that dough isn’t the ultimate goal. The lawsuit, which demands a jury trial, asks the court for damages to be determined at trial.

“Our clients are longtime local people. They have no desire to bankrupt Parker Ranch, even though they’re very sad, and some are quite angry over this. Yes, we can certainly put those kinds of numbers up on the board, but I don’t think it’s going to take that much to resolve this case,” said Bickerton. “What’s needed is for somebody on the other side to step up and take responsibility for what happened and really address the actual damages and not stick their head in the sand and pretend that ‘Oh, it’s just some fencing that got burned.’”

Morgan-Bickerton added that clients were not eager to file the lawsuit.

“It’s a small community. A lot of these families are from families that worked for Parker Ranch for many years — for decades — who have supported Parker Ranch and it’s just been really surprising, and really sad, for our clients that no one from Parker Ranch has really stepped forward,” she said. “And, they’ve gotten to a point where something had to be done about it. And here we are.”

While the lawsuit may be unprecedented in Hawaii, such litigation has been undertaken on the mainland over large fires started by corporations.

“In the last few years, there have been tremendous fires in California and southern Oregon, and some of them were started by corporate defendants like Parker Ranch. In fact, I think, PG&E, the power company in California, was essentially bankrupted by the damage they caused from their operations,” explained Bickerton. “So there’s actually a lot of precedent for paying for fire damage when you negligently start a fire, or negligently failed to suppress it. And the law is very strict when it comes to dealing with things that are dangerous like sawing in a dry grassy area. The law doesn’t really give you much leeway if you’re going to do that. You’re going to pay.”