Residents of Gates, Oregon, aim their ire at Pacific Power nearly a year after their town burned

“911, what is your emergency?”

“We need help in Gates!” a caller screams in a 911 recording. “There’s a fire coming up in the neighborhood. It’s huge!”

On the night of Sept. 7, 2020, calls like this were streaming into 911 dispatchers and overwhelming local firefighting capabilities when Johne Martin woke up, stepped outside his house and saw absolute chaos surrounding him.

“The wind started whipping … the limbs started flying around, and I’m hearing trees break down,” he said. “And I looked down the street toward the Petersons’ place, and the wind blew a line down, and it caught things on fire below. It burned the Petersons’ place, too.”

He could see another fire burning in the distance that had already destroyed two homes, and there were lots of downed power lines.

“There was more than just the power line I’d seen blown down,” he said. “There was more up and down the roads.”

Martin quickly realized he had to leave — and fast. He hurried to grab what he could from his house. It wasn’t much. Some family photos, medications and a safe. The rest of his belongings burned. The Petersons had left their home earlier, “so, they didn’t even know that their house was gone,” Martin said.