Court filings address PG&E role in wildfires
PG&E crews inspected company equipment and vegetation near the site where the Fly Fire in the Sierra Nevada began in late July, but never made note of a white fir that later toppled onto utility lines, possibly igniting the blaze that merged with the Dixie Fire to become the second-largest wildfire in California history, papers filed in federal court showed Monday.
Six trees near the suspected origin of the Fly Fire were put on a nonurgent list marking them for trimming or removal because of their proximity to power lines, the court filings show. But the white fir that toppled onto utility lines on July 22 — a charred tree was later collected as evidence — was not among those mentioned in any report.
Pacific Gas and Electric lawyers on Monday
reported the company’s inspection history in the Quincy area in response to a federal judge’s order demanding the utility detail what is known so far about its role starting the Dixie Fire, a massive blaze that has so far cost the U.S. Forest Service $217 million to fight and is only 31% contained. It has been burning since July 14 and has destroyed 1,173 structures.
The utility’s poor record of power line maintenance has been blamed for starting some of the state’s most devastating fires in recent years, including the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise (Butte County) and killed 85 people.
Already this year, PG&E equipment is suspected of causing 62 fires, most kept to less than an acre, court records show. But five fires grew to more than 10 acres. The Fly and Dixie fires are the largest, having merged and burned across 578,000 acres in the last five weeks, according to Cal Fire.
After the Dixie Fire ignited, PG&E announced a plan to bury 10,000 miles of power lines.
The Dixie Fire burned in the Plumas National Forest, menacing Gold Rush communities and prime recreation areas, destroying much of the historic community of Greenville. It started near the Cresta Dam — not far from the transmission tower that ignited the Camp Fire.
In its first days it threatened to burn back toward the Feather River Canyon communities ravaged by the Camp Fire. But firefighters — some using hoses from train cars in remote canyons — beat it back, and the inferno grew exponentially across Plumas County and into Lassen and Tehama counties. The fire forced the closure of Lassen Volcanic National Park.
PG&E’s court filings also included photos of the Douglas fir tree and power pole under investigation as the cause of the main Dixie Fire.
Utility lawyers said in the court papers that the U.S. Forest Service had not determined how the Fly Fire started, noting PG&E learned through news stories that investigators were looking into whether the white fir tree ignited the fire. But in preliminary filings with the California Public Utilities Comon mission, PG&E said its equipment may have ignited both the Dixie and Fly fires.
In the Quincy area, PG&E staff helped U.S. Forest Service fire investigators collect utility equipment, including fuses and crossarms, from two power poles on property along Butterfly Valley Twain Road. The white fir “had burn marks near the areas that may have previously been in contact” with the power lines, the court filing states. Power lines collected as evidence also had “burn marks or other signs of disturbance,” the utility reported.
That precise span of power lines had been inspected July 6 “as part of a routine vegetation management patrol, and based PG&E’s analysis of records associated with that patrol, the white fir was not identified for either removal or trimming.
“Six other trees in that span were identified for trimming on a scheduled basis and were not identified to be priority trees,” the court filing states.
PG&E workers returned to the site June 25 for an “enhanced inspection” and determined the two poles holding the power lines hit by the white fir needed maintenance, noting “trees growing around the pole” and “tree limbs overgrown around pole.” Crews were scheduled to return in late July for another inspection and the work was to be completed by the end of June 2022.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup also ordered the utility to explain why the power lines were energized at the time of the fire. Attorneys for PG&E said the weather forecast didn’t meet the dangerous wind and heat conditions that might trigger the company to cut power for the area.
PG&E also told the judge it was not responsible for a drone encountered during the first hours of the Dixie Fire that may have stymied firefighting operations from the air, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration and FBI to investigate possible interference with firefighting operations, according to a report by KQED.
PG&E has no record of anyone doing drone inspection work for the company near the fire’s origin and had “no reason to believe that any such drone operator was acting at PG&E’s direction or on PG&E’s behalf,” the utility said.
Alsup, the federal judge, is overseeing PG&E’s criminal probation for the deadly San Bruno gas line explosion in 2010 that destroyed 38 homes and killed eight people. After the deadly Camp Fire in 2018, Alsup has made PG&E’s management of its electrical grid central to the company’s criminal oversight and has pushed the company to make its power lines safer.
PG&E equipment caused major fires in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.