California’s Pacific Gas & Electric charged in 2019 fire

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California prosecutor filed 33 criminal charges Tuesday accusing troubled Pacific Gas & Electric of inadvertently injuring six firefighters and endangering public health with smoke and ash in a 2019 fire blamed on its equipment.

The nation’s largest utility denied that it committed any crimes even as it accepted that its transmission line sparked the blaze.

The Sonoma County district attorney charged the utility with five felony and 28 misdemeanor counts in the October 2019 Kincade Fire north of San Francisco, including recklessly causing a fire that seriously injured six firefighters. Among the unidentified firefighters were a member of an inmate fire crew and at least two out-of-state contractors, one of whom suffered second- and third-degree burns to his legs and torso.

Fire officials said a PG&E transmission line sparked the fire, which destroyed 374 buildings and caused nearly 100,000 people to flee as it burned through 120 square miles.

The charges and related enhancements accuse the company of destroying inhabited structures and emitting air contaminants “with reckless disregard for the risk of great bodily injury” from toxic wildfire smoke and related particulate matter and ash, thereby endangering public health. They allege that the utility failed to maintain facilities including transmission lines, among the numerous related misdemeanor charges.