California utility to pay $55 million for massive wildfires

SAN FRANCISCO — Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility, has agreed to pay more than $55 million to avoid criminal prosecution for two major wildfires sparked by its aging Northern California power lines and submit to five years of oversight in an attempt to prevent more deadly blazes.

The company didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement announced Monday with prosecutors in six counties ravaged by last year’s Dixie Fire and the 2019 Kincade Fire. The utility still faces criminal charges for a 2020 wildfire in Shasta County that killed four people.

The civil settlements are designed to accelerate payments to hundreds of people whose homes were destroyed so they can start rebuilding more quickly than those who suffered devastating losses in 2017 and 2018 blazes ignited by PG&E’s equipment. Those fires prompted the utility to negotiate settlements that included $13.5 billion earmarked for victims — money that still hasn’t been completely distributed.

The deal also thrusts the utility back into five years of independent oversight, similar to the supervision PG&E faced during its criminal probation after it was convicted of misconduct that contributed to a natural gas explosion that killed eight people in 2010.

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said that oversight was the biggest accomplishment to come from the settlement.

“We have limited tools and criminal law to deal with corporations and what we were able to do here was to get a five-year agreement that they will be overseen, that there will be an independent monitor, and that they will have to meet certain benchmarks,” she said Monday.

All told, PG&E has been blamed for more than 30 wildfires since 2017 that wiped out more than 23,000 homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people.