PG&E FIRE LIABILITY.

Utility: Power lines came into contact with brush

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. told a federal judge Wednesday that at least three fires in Northern and Central California this year, and possibly a fourth, were touched off by contact between its power lines and trees or brush.

Each fire consumed 10 acres or more, but none destroyed any buildings, PG&E said in a filing with U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco, who had asked for the previously undisclosed details. Alsup is overseeing PG&E’s probation for its felony convictions in the lethal San Bruno gas pipeline explosion of 2010

and has ordered the utility to substantially improve its vegetation management and fire prevention.

The disclosure came while the utility was cutting off electricity to about 800,000 Northern and Central California residents, including 450,000 in the Bay Area, as high winds increased the danger of fires.

PG&E, California’s largest public utility, has been found responsible for hundreds of wildfires in recent yeas, including last year’s Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history, which killed 85 people and leveled the town of Paradise in Butte County. A jury trial is scheduled in January on whether the company was also at fault in the Tubbs fire, which killed 22 people in the Santa Rosa area in October 2017. PG&E filed for bankruptcy in January.

The fires described in Wednesday’s court filing included:

The Spearhead Fire in Fresno County, which started on the afternoon of May 29, was contained 80 minutes later and burned about 10 acres. PG&E said it apparently started when a pine tree fell and hit a wire, knocking it to the ground.

PG&E said company inspectors had visited the area the previous month and had not tagged the tree for trimming or removal, though it was later found to have been dead when it toppled. The 60foot pine was rooted about 45 feet from the power lines, outside the prescribed safety zone, and apparently was leaning in the opposite direction before it fell, PG&E said.

The Belridge Fire in Kern County, which started on the night of May 30, was contained about 9½ hours later, and burned 53 acres. PG&E said a wire connecting one of its power lines to a pole had a break in it, causing the line to fall to the ground and ignite vegetation.

An inspector had spotted the broken wire in February but issued a notice that only called for repair within a year, a timetable later approved by an individual at PG&E, the company said. It said the state Public Utilities Commission does not classify the area as one of high fire danger.

The Grove Fire in Fresno County, which started on the afternoon of Sept. 16, was contained about 5½ hours later, and burned 13 acres. It apparently started when a pine tree limb fell into a power line, knocking it to the ground, PG&E said.

It said less than two weeks earlier a company inspector hadn’t seen anything wrong with the tree, whose limb appeared to be healthy when it fell.

The Highway Fire south of Chico in Butte County, which started on the afternoon of Sept. 29, was contained about 3½ hours later, and burned 300 acres of grassland but no structures. PG&E said state fire examiners are investigating the blaze, the cause remains unknown, and “it is possible that PG&E’s equipment may not be involved.”