At the scene:
Survivors are subdued in their reaction to Cal Fire’s conclusion that PG&E was at fault.
“My tears have been shed long ago. It is what it is. We have to focus on rebuilding.” Dan Dwyer, whose home burned in the Atlas Fire, on learning PG&E was faulted in the deadly wildfires
Napa is seeing red all over again.
“Wow,” said Dan Dwyer, whose 4,500-square-foot home on Burning Tree Court burned to the ground in the 2017 firestorm that CalFire declared on Friday to be the fault of PG&E.
“It’s a kick in the gut,” he said. “I’m disappointed. I’d heard they had not paid as much money into maintenance as they should have.”
He shook his head as he borrowed a pair or reading glasses from his wife, Cindy, to pore over the CalFire announcement.
“My tears have been shed long ago,” he said at last, although Cindy looked as if she might have a few more to spare. “It is what it is. We have to focus on rebuilding.”
On Monticello Road, not far from the heart of the 51,624-acre Atlas Fire that killed six people and destroyed 783 structures, restaurateur Bashar Elkhalil said his establishment, Cordeiro’s Steakhouse, lost $80,000 or so in patronage and another $10,000 in thawed steaks and seafood after PG& E shut off the power for repairs in the region after the fire was out and the restaurant had reopened.
“The small guy always gets the bad end of it,” Elkhalil said. “Good luck to guys like me. Everything we say falls on deaf ears.”
But, he said, the restaurant was doing its best to recover, one $69 New York steak at a time.
At nearby Valley Liquor and Gas service station and convenience store, owner Rasheed Khan said he’d had to close his doors for six days.
“Of course, they (PG&E) should take responsibility,” he said. “I don’t want to blame anybody. My mind does not want to do that now. But if they’re responsible, they’re responsible.”
Not all residents felt it was fair to blame the utility’s lapses for all 51,624 lost acres.
Arborist Mark Hyatt of CutRite Tree Service said Atlas Peak is going to burn every few decades “no matter who does what.”
“Wildfires are a natural phenomenon,” he said, even as he gazed across Monticello Road at two PG&E poles that were clearly making contact with the untrimmed branches and leaves of adjacent trees — the very fault that CalFire cited in its announcement.
“I get it. People lost everything. You gotta be mad at somebody.”
Hyatt, who lives on nearby Mount George, lost his barn in the firestorm but saved his house and his eight cats.
“I’ve got a hard time blaming PG&E. They didn’t put up all that foliage themselves. No matter what starts a wildfire, it’s going to burn.”