Fire Mountain Scout Camp

The electric transmission lines running the length of Fire Mountain camp property belong to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and were constructed during the early 1950s. These transmission lines are part of a network of 15,000 miles of power lines administered by BPA extending to Canada, California, and Montana. Although the land within the easement belongs to Fire Mountain, BPA keeps the land clear in order to ensure accessibility to the transmission lines for proper maintenance. This easement is clearly visible in satellite photographs of northwest Washington.

The Bonneville Power Administration has its roots in the efforts of President Franklin Roosevelt during the early 1930s to keep electricity affordable and accessible to the public in the Northwest at a time when large private electric utility holding companies dominated the energy market across the region. The BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 in order to sell the power generated by the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. The BPA encompasses 30 federally-owned dams and one nuclear power plant, and it supplies approximately half of the electricity used in the Pacific Northwest. These dams were instrumental in expanding irrigation throughout eastern Washington, making it one of the most important agricultural areas in the country.