CalFire says judge’s tree rules for PG&E bit off base
State fire officials have told the federal judge overseeing Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s criminal probation that California law requires the utility to remove all tree limbs that may topple onto a power line during times of high fire danger — but does not mandate removal of all overhanging trees or limbs, as the judge contended.
Asked by U.S. District Judge William Alsup to interpret the law that it enforces, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said in a filing Wednesday that electric companies, during fire season, are required to cut down all trees or limbs that are within 4 feet of some power lines and within 10 feet of others, depending on the voltage in the line. In addition, Cal Fire said the law requires removal of any trees or limbs that “may come into contact with lines.”
That provision applies to trees that have been weakened by decay or disease and any other trees or limbs that are leaning toward a power line or may fall on it, Cal Fire’s lawyers said. The requirement includes healthy trees that, in the “professional judgment” of competent inspectors, may topple onto a line in high winds, but it does not go so far as to require “trimming or removing every healthy limb that hangs over a power line,” Cal Fire said.
Alsup is overseeing PG&E’s probation for its felony convictions on charges stemming from the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people. At a hearing last week, the San Francisco judge said he was considering a further probation condition that would require the utility to remove all trees or limbs above power lines, actions that he believed are required by state law.
Alsup asked Cal Fire for its interpretation, and also said the agency should ask the Legislature to strengthen the law if it doesn’t already mandate removal of the trees and limbs. After hearing from Cal Fire, PG&E and other regulators and advocates, Alsup can now decide whether to order the utility to take further fire-prevention measures, including rigorous inspection and tree-trimming in all forests and brushlands near its transmission lines by the end of this spring. Federal prosecutors who brought the San Bruno blast case against PG&E have indicated that Alsup’s proposed order went too far and have told the judge that PG&E’s court-appointed monitor was in a better position to propose “workable” fire-prevention measures.
Cal Fire’s filing noted that both that agency and the California Public Utilities Commission have issued fire-prevention rules and guidelines for PG&E and other electric suppliers. While Cal Fire’s guidelines say that healthy, live trees usually pose no danger to power lines, the agency said even healthy trees or heavy limbs that are leaning toward lines can be dangerous in extreme weather conditions.
Northern and Central California fires in 2006, 2007 and 2010, and the Butte Fire that killed two people and burned 70,000 acres in 2015, were started by “contact between PG&E power lines and overhanging tree limbs that PG&E contended appeared to be living and healthy, and thus not subject to trimming,” Cal Fire said. In each case, the agency said, “the identifiable hazard should have been removed to prevent that contact and the resulting fire.”