`Excessively delayed response' worsened Dixie Fire, report says

Cal Fire blamed PG&E Corp. for an “excessively delayed response” that contributed to the furious initial spread of last year's Dixie Fire, which became the second-largest wildfire in California history.

State investigators, in their final report on the 963,000-acre fire, said PG&E was too slow in reacting to a malfunction on one of its power lines near the Cresta Dam in a remote area of Plumas County last July. By the time a PG&E troubleshooter arrived at the scene, about 10 hours after the problem occurred, “the fire was too large for him to contain and a 911 response was requested,” the investigators wrote.

Cal Fire announced in January that PG&E caused the Dixie Fire — a determination the utility's executive accepted. However, the agency didn't make its report public. The state gave PG&E a copy of the report, and the utility released it Thursday.

In April, PG&E made a deal with district attorneys in the five Sacramento Valley counties hit by the Dixie Fire to avoid criminal prosecution. Instead, the company agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars in fines and charitable contributions, and to hire 80 to 100 employees in those counties to work on tree-trimming and equipment inspection. The employees will be supervised by a consulting firm hired by the utility.

The hourslong delay before the fire was discovered has been the subject of previous scrutiny, including a scathing report by a federal judge who was overseeing PG&E's criminal probation in connection with the fatal 2010 natural-gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno.

In a statement, the company pushed back on the idea that it was late to respond to the fire.

“We believe we acted as a prudent operator,” PG&E said.

“The day of the fire was a blue-sky day, and there was no indication of an emergency until our troubleman arrived at the scene soon after the fire had started,” the company added. “Consistent with our policies and standards, the troubleman worked diligently for hours to get to the site, including after being turned away by a county road crew, and fought the fire heroically by himself before Cal Fire arrived.”

In their report, the Cal Fire investigators said they believed PG&E could have acted more quickly after a Douglas fir fell and made contact with a power line shortly before 7 a.m. July 13.

“The prolonged response to the initial outage and fault … was a direct and negligent factor in the ignition of the fire,” they wrote.

Cal Fire also said the tree that sparked the fire was “damaged and decayed.” But PG&E said the tree was “alive, vital and growing vertically at the time of the fire.” Its inspectors had checked the tree in January 2021, six months before the fire, “and concluded the tree did not need to be removed.”

The Dixie Fire was California's largest wildfire last year. It destroyed most of the tiny Plumas County community of Greenville and caused extensive damage in nearby Chester. PG&E has estimated the damages at $1.15 billion.

A string of massive fires forced the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019. It emerged from bankruptcy a year later but remains dogged by wildfire issues. On Thursday it pleaded innocent to criminal charges in the Zogg Fire, which killed four people in 2020.