Bootleg is a case of interconnected consequences. Forest effects, transmission-line interruptions and smoke each require different evidence. This record connects operational documents with later research, without turning a local treatment result into a claim about the whole fire or every community downwind.
What was the Bootleg Fire?
BPA dates the fire’s start to 6 July 2021. [1]
The Lakeview Forest Service report lists 413,716 acres. This source-defined figure is not a newly reconciled final perimeter. [2]
A useful case record asks three separate questions: what happened to the landscape, what happened to essential services, and what later studies can explain. A fire-area total answers none of those questions on its own. It describes extent; it does not count households without electricity, quantify smoke exposure or show that every acre experienced the same ecological change.
Three 500 kV lines went out of service on 9 July
BPA records Grizzly–Captain Jack #1 relaying out at 15:33, then Grizzly–Malin #2 and Summer Lake–Malin #1 at 15:41. It distinguishes relay action from smoke or fire, deliberate de-energization and public safety power shutoffs. Preserve that mechanism rather than labelling every wildfire-related interruption a PSPS. [1]
| Date | Recorded development | What the record supports |
|---|---|---|
| 9 July 2021 | Three corridor lines relayed out of service. | A transmission-system event; no household outage total is supplied here. |
| 13 July 2021 | Grizzly–Captain Jack and Summer Lake–Malin returned to service. | Restoration of these particular assets. |
| 14 July 2021 | Grizzly–Malin #2 returned to service. | A separate restoration timestamp. |
| 23 July 2021 | BPA removed its Bootleg Fire restriction. | An operational milestone, not a fire-containment date. |
Dates and times above follow BPA’s presentation; no time zone has been added. [1]
Tecnobosque interpretation: the practical distinction is between an asset being unavailable and a particular customer losing supply. The table does not establish a continuous outage for every customer between the first interruption and the restriction’s removal. Household preparedness needs local utility information and actual essential-load requirements; transmission voltage alone cannot size a backup battery.
What the 2025 treatment study actually measured
Sanna and colleagues studied 1,800 hectares near Sycan Marsh. They identify a lightning-caused fire. Their 2022 assessment combined Sentinel-2 relativized burn ratio (RBR), prefire LiDAR, Random Forest and SHAP. Tx meant mechanical thinning followed by pile burning; Rx meant broadcast burning; TxRx combined thinning and broadcast burning. [3]
| Treatment group | Reported severity class | Area share |
|---|---|---|
| Broadcast-burning treatments | Low | Over 80% |
| Tx, without broadcast burning | Moderate | 45% |
| Untreated forest | High | 42% |
The authors found Rx most influential in their model. No local 2022 Composite Burn Index observations were available; class interpretation used published RBR thresholds. The explanatory model used all 1,846 observations, prioritizing within-study understanding over predictions on unseen data. [3]
Read the denominators: the rows describe different groups and different severity classes. Subtracting their percentages cannot produce a treatment’s reduction in high severity. Nor does an area share measure the probability that a home survived. A fair comparison needs the same outcome definition and a defensible comparison design.
Scale check, calculated by Tecnobosque: 413,716 acres × 0.40468564224 ≈ 167,425 hectares; 1,800 ÷ 167,425 × 100 ≈ 1.1%. This compares footprints, not representativeness. [2] [3]
Smoke transport is not the same as local exposure
NASA GMAO’s 30 July 2021 analysis describes an early North American burning season following the late-June heatwave and longstanding drought. It identifies Bootleg among several major fires. The analysis describes smoke from multiple sources travelling east, reaching the East Coast by 20 July. It does not attribute all eastern pollution to Bootleg. [4]
The same analysis compared GEOS FP surface PM2.5 estimates with observations near Boise, finding overestimation beginning on 10 July. NASA identified optical-property representation and missing fire-driven aerosol lofting as possible model limitations. These are limitations of the configuration discussed in 2021, not a claim that every current smoke forecast has the same defect. [4]
Tecnobosque interpretation: a visible plume, a modelled atmospheric column and a surface monitor answer different questions. Combining them can improve understanding, but an image cannot supply an individual’s inhaled dose. This case supplies neither a Bootleg-only exposure map nor a conversion from satellite appearance to indoor air quality.
After the fire: emergency recovery needs their own records
The FY2021 Lakeview report lists a $484,271 Bootleg BAER funding request, including invasive-plant work, road stormproofing, trail drainage and hazard controls. A request is not proof of completed work, final spending or measured effectiveness. [2]
Document check: the included treatment-effectiveness report concerns Cougar Peak. Bootleg’s was omitted because its Lakeview CFLRP overlap was small. Do not transfer another fire’s findings to Bootleg merely because they share a PDF. [2]
Evolution of knowledge: what was known when?
- July 2021 operations: the electrical sequence concerns decisions and asset status during the incident; BPA presents it retrospectively. [1]
- 30 July 2021 publication: NASA’s analysis discusses regional transport and model behaviour while the fire season was still unfolding. [4]
- FY2021 reporting: the Lakeview annual document supplies agency area and recovery-request records. Its fiscal-year label is not an exact issue date. [2]
- 2025 research: later ecological analysis adds evidence that was unavailable to crews when the fire started. [3]
Fire DNA: an evidence profile, not a predictive score
For comparison across the archive, this case has three useful evidence axes: local forest effects, infrastructure disruption and regional smoke interpretation. Each uses a different spatial footprint, time window and outcome. Their combination makes the case informative; it does not create a validated risk index.
The sources do not support a new fatality inventory, a household outage count, a Bootleg-only national pollution estimate or a universal treatment success rate. Tecnobosque has not conducted fieldwork, reprocessed satellite imagery or audited individual transmission protections for this record. New data can refine the case, provided their boundaries and definitions remain visible.
Primary sources and record scope
- Bonneville Power Administration: BPA System Operations Post-Summer Update, slides 2 and 9. Operator presentation, hosted by Oregon PUC; dated Bootleg timeline.
- USDA Forest Service: Lakeview Stewardship CFLRP Annual Report, FY2021, printed pages 11–12. Agency area, BAER request and fire-specific report coverage.
- Sanna et al. (2025): Assessing fuel treatments and burn severity using global and local analyses. Fire Ecology 21:44; DOI 10.1186/s42408-025-00387-y. Methods, results and study limits.
- NASA GMAO: An Early Start to the North American Biomass Burning Season in 2021, Allie Collow, Emma Knowland and Joe Ardizzone, 30 July 2021. Regional model analysis and observation comparison.