Add in forest mismanagement.
A federal court in San Francisco tentatively found that equipment owned by Northern California utility Pacific Gas and Electric was “the single most recurring cause” in deadly wildfires that have plagued the state since 2017.
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup made the finding Thursday in a case related to PG&E’s response to the deadly 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion.
“The Court tentatively finds that the single most recurring cause of the large 2017 and 2018 wildfires attributable to PG&E’s equipment has been the susceptibility of PG&E’s distribution lines to trees or limbs falling onto them during high-wind events,” his order in the case reads.
“The power conductors are almost always uninsulated,” Alsup wrote. “When the conductors are pushed together by falling trees or limbs, electrical sparks drop into the vegetation below. During the wildfire season when the vegetation is dry, these electrical sparks pose an extreme danger of igniting a wildfire.”