PG&E: Uprooted trees took out lines

Power of winds on night fires started illustrated

Late in the evening of Oct. 8, the night wildfires erupted across Wine Country, winds blew branches and entire trees into Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power lines throughout a wide swath of Northern California, according to safety reports that California regulators released Tuesday.

The reports offer snapshots of the damage that PG&E encountered from Mendocino and Sonoma counties in the North Bay to Butte and Nevada counties in the Sierra foothills. The utility reported finding apparently healthy trees toppled into power lines, even though some were rooted as far as 50 feet away.

Investigators with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, are trying to determine whether PG&E’s power lines sparked the Wine Country fires, which killed at least 43 people and displaced thousands. Insured losses from October fires across the state, most of them in Northern California,

already top $3 billion, according to an update Tuesday from state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones.

PG&E filed the safety reports with the California Public Utilities Commission, which is conducting its own investigation into the fires.

The 20 reports posted online Tuesday by the commission do not give a complete accounting of the damage to PG&E’s equipment. The utility, for example, told The Chronicle a week after the fires began that its crews had found 1,500 damaged or destroyed power poles.

The brief, two-page reports also do not indicate whether the damaged PG&E equipment may have started fires. Instead, they show that the windstorm that preceded and fanned the flames was widespread.

Although the commission redacted exact addresses before releasing the reports, one describes a 60-foot-tall eucalyptus tree in Kenwood toppling over and taking three power lines to the ground. Another details an 80-foot-tall Ponderosa pine near Grass Valley in Nevada County snapping at the base, taking down three lines and destroying a garage with three vintage cars.

Several of the reports say Cal Fire investigators took possession of the damaged equipment.