Cal Fire says PG&E caused Dixie Fire

Cal Fire investigators determined this Tuesday, Jan. 4, the cause of the Dixie Fire that burned more than 963,000 acres last year.

Officials say the fire was caused by a tree making contact with PG&E power lines near Cresta Dam.

The investigative report has been sent to the county’s District Attorney’s office.

The Dixie Fire started on July 13 and burned in Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta, and Tehama counties.

Altogether 963,309 acres were burned, 1,329 structures were destroyed, and 95 structures were damaged.

This is just the latest in a series of devastating wildfires caused by the utility’s equipment

The Dixie Fire started on July 13, 2021, and grew to the secondlargest fire in state history, burning over 960,000 acres and destroying over 1,300 structures. It decimated the rural town of Greenville and damaged other communities in Plumas, Butte, Lassen, Shasta and Tehama counties. It was the first known fire to burn clear across the Sierra Nevada mountain range, followed later in the year by the Caldor Fire.

The fire caused severe damage to forestland and forced thousands of people to evacuate.

Cal Fire’s investigative finding was not unexpected because in July, PG&E reported to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that its equipment may have caused the

Dixie Fire. One of the utility’s employees responded to a power outage reported at Cresta Dam and found blown fuses and a tree leaning into PG&E equipment, with fire burning at the tree’s base. At the time, Cal Fire investigators took several pieces of PG&E equipment.

Last year, Cal Fire investigators concluded the utility started the Zogg Fire, which burned 56,000 acres and killed four people. The Shasta County District Attorney’s Office charged the utility with manslaughter and other crimes in September.

In 2018, PG&E’s equipment started the deadly Camp Fire in Butte County. The fire leveled the town of Paradise and killed 85 people. At trial, PG&E pled guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter.

It was also in 2018 when PG&E sought bankruptcy protection as it faced tens of billions of dollars in potential liability for wildfires it caused. As I’ve pointed in previous columns, many survivors of wildfires caused by PG&E have been given the runaround by the electrical giant, while the state Legislature and CPUC sat mostly silent.

Last April, the CPUC ordered “enhanced oversight” on PG&E after the company failed to remove and trim trees from its most at-risk power lines. But as I’ve reported for years, the CPUC has mostly failed in its primary responsibility to regulate PG&E. For example, the Commission for nearly a decade granted extension after extension to PG&E allowing it to defer mandatory maintenance by removing and trimming trees and vegetation growing too closto its overhead infrastructure.

AT&T, Verizon moving forward with 5G plans, thumb noses at feds

As a former airline employee and labor leader, I can tell you that two cellular corporations need to be brought to heel immediately.

AT&T and Verizon are moving forward with their 5G expansion plans — despite a request from the

U.S. government to delay the project.

The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and Department of Transportation (DOT). want the rollout delayed, concerned about possible impacts on airplane and airport controls.

But the companies have refused, claiming that 5G technology is “every bit as essential to our country’s economic vitality, public safety and national interests as the airline industry.”

“France provides a realworld example of an operating environment where 5G and aviation safety already co-exist,” the CEOs wrote. “If US airlines are permitted to operate flights every day in France, then the same operating conditions should allow them to do so in the United States.”

Who gives a damn what the French allow?

These two mega-corporations act as if they are beyond the reach of the U.S. government.

The FAA and DOT, when it comes to airline safety issues, have a long record of mostly looking out for the interests of the public. In this case, the feds are concerned about 5G interfering with airplane instrumentation and avionics, not exactly minor concerns. For example, avionics includes such things as communication systems, navigation systems, aircraft flight-control systems, fuel systems, collision-avoidance systems, flight recorders, and weather systems

Both agencies should immediately change their “request” to an order.

We cannot allow these global market conglomerates to ignore if not usurp federal jurisdiction over their operations.

Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@ pacific.net, the longtime district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http:// www.kpfn.org.