PG&E says its power equipment may be linked to another Northern California wildfire
PG&E Corp. is being investigated for its potential role in another California wildfire.
The utility told the Public Utilities Commission late Monday that a tree was found lying on PG&E transmission equipment in the vicinity of the Fly Fire, which ignited in rural Plumas County on July 22.
The Fly Fire burned 4,300 acres over three days before it merged into the much larger Dixie Fire. PG&E is being investigated in connection with the Dixie Fire as well. The fire is the largest in the state this year, having burned 249,635 acres and destroyed 67 buildings as of Monday night. The fire, burning northeast of the notorious 2018 Camp Fire, is 35% contained.
The Camp Fire was the latest in a series of megafires that drove PG&E into bankruptcy in early 2019. While the utility emerged from bankruptcy a year later, it’s under intense scrutiny from the utilities commission and other agencies over wildfire safety.
Last week, Shasta County’s district attorney said she believes PG&E is “criminally liable” for last fall’s Zogg Fire, which killed four people in a rural area west of Redding. Formal criminal charges are expected to be filed soon, and PG&E indicated it would fight the charges. The utility pleaded guilty to felony charges in the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people.
In April, the DA in Sonoma County filed criminal charges against the company in connection with the 2019 Kincade Fire, which didn’t kill anyone but prompted the evacuation of nearly 200,000 residents. PG&E has told its shareholders that its losses from the Kincade Fire could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Also late Monday, the utility announced a series of additional wildfire safety measures. For the remainder of the fire season, it will respond to “any fault or outage” in fire-prone areas within 60 minutes. It will also deploy helicopters and foot patrols to inspect at-risk circuits and power lines in fire-prone areas.
This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 7:29 AM with the headline "PG&E says its power equipment may be linked to another Northern California wildfire."