PG&E power lines caused Kincade Fire
PG&E power lines caused the destructive Kincade Fire in Sonoma County in 2019, state fire investigators reported.
PG&E power lines caused the destructive Kincade Fire in Sonoma County in October 2019, state fire investigators reported on Thursday.
The wildfire burned 78,000 acres, destroyed 374 structures, and caused four injuries that weren’t life-threatening, the state’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CAL Fire, said Thursday.
The results of the state investigation were revealed just a few days after PG&E emerged from a $58 billion bankruptcy triggered by a mountain of debts, including liabilities linked to a string of lethal Northern California wildfires that PG&E caused in 2015, 2017, and 2018.
“CAL Fire has determined that the Kincade Fire was caused by electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric located northeast of Geyserville,” state fire officials said.
“Tinder-dry vegetation and strong winds combined with low humidity and warm temperatures contributed to extreme rates of fire spread” in the case of the Kincade Fire, CAL Fire stated.
Alarmed by the string of deadly wildfires, coming years after a fatal gas explosion in San Bruno that PG&E caused, state government officials have approved contingency plans to be able to oust PG&E as the region’s primary provider of electricity and gas services.
A new law would enable California to replace PG&E with Golden State Energy, a non-profit utility if it appears that PG&E is struggling with maintenance and safety.
“California must have a backstop in place to protect ratepayers and our state if PG&E does not meet the strict requirements for emerging from bankruptcy and for becoming a safe, reliable, and sustainable energy provider,” state Sen. Jerry Hill, author of the bill, SB 350, said earlier this month soon after the legislation was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
PG&E hopes that the end of the bankruptcy proceeding and what the utility says is a heightened attentiveness to safety will mark a new chapter for the embattled utility.
In May of this year, the state Public Utilities Commission imposed a $1.97 billion penalty on PG&E for its role in causing the wildfires of 2017 and 2018. That came just five years after a 2015 decision by the PUC to impose a $1.5 billion penalty on PG&E for causing the San Bruno explosion. Both of those penalties were, at the time they were levied, the largest regulatory punishments ever imposed on an American utility.
On June 16, PG&E entered the grim pantheon of America’s deadliest corporations by pleading guilty to killing 84 people in the Camp Fire in Butte County in November 2018.
In the case of the Kincade Fire, the state findings might not be the end of the investigation into the destructive wildfire near Geyserville.
“The Kincade Fire investigative report has been forwarded to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office,” CAL Fire stated.