SACRAMENTO, California (AP) – A California prosecutor on Tuesday filed 33 criminal charges accusing the troubled Pacific Gas & Electric of accidentally injuring six firefighters and endangering public health with smoke and ash during ‘ a fire in 2019 that accused the equipment of it.
The country’s largest utility industry has denied that it has committed any crimes, even though it has accepted that the transmission line is causing the fire.
The Sonoma County District Attorney charged the utility with five crimes and 28 offenses 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 a captive fire crew and at least two out-of-state contractors, one of whom sustained second- and third-degree burns to his legs and torso.
Firefighters said a PG&E transmission line ignited the fire, destroying 374 buildings and fleeing nearly 100,000 people when it burned 311 square kilometers. Prosecutors said it was the largest evacuation in the country’s history, including the entire towns of Healdsburg, Windsor and Geyserville.
The charges and related improvements accuse the company of destroying inhabited structures and emitting air pollution “with reckless disregard for the risk of major bodily injury” by toxic veldfire smoke and related particles and ash, endangering public health. They allege that the utilities did not maintain the facilities, including transmission lines, under the numerous related costs.
District Attorney Jill Ravitch said she and other investigators went to the scene of the fire as soon as it was safe, and have since worked with state and independent experts to determine the cause and responsibility for the fire.
Ravitch said the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported to her office in July that the fire started when a cable in a transmission tower broke in strong winds and caused an electric arc when it hit the tower. It dropped molten material into the dry vegetation below and set fire to a fire that took 15 days to continue.
She said her office’s own investigation included interviews with dozens of witnesses, warrants and the review of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. Prosecutors also consulted with other law enforcement and regulatory agencies and independent experts.
PG&E said in a statement that it accepts the findings that the transmission line in the Geysers Geothermal Field north-east of Geyserville caused the fire “in the spirit of work to do what is right for the victims”, although he did not report or have not seen evidence from investigators into state fires.
“However, we believe there was no crime here,” the company said in a statement. “We remain committed to making it right for all those affected and working to further reduce the risk of wildfires on our system.”
The charges on Tuesday are the latest in a series of similar problems for the utility industry that serves more than 16 million people in much of Northern California.
PG & E’s alleged criminal negligence in the wildfire in Sonoma County occurred while the company was caught in a bankruptcy caused by a series of deadly infernos set on fire during 2017 and 2018 by the crumbling of equipment.
The deadliest in Butte County wiped out the entire town of Paradise in the deadliest and most devastating wildfire in California’s recorded history. PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 charges of involuntary manslaughter due to the June fire.
Although Bill Johnson, then CEO of PG&E, appeared in court to file convictions before some of the surviving families, none of the company went to jail. Instead, the company paid the maximum fine of $ 4 million.
PG&E came out of bankruptcy protection shortly after the guilty pleas and settlements to cover the damage caused by the quarrel. The settlements include a $ 13.5 billion fund for field victims who recently began distributing some of the money to help people rebuild their lives.
State investigators said last month a wildfire in Northern California that killed four people and destroyed more than 200 buildings last year was sparked when tree branches came in contact with the power sources of the electricity. The wind-powered Zogg Fire flared last September and October through rural communities in Shasta and Tehama provinces.
The Sonoma County wildfire also has the brackets of a federal judge overseeing PG & E’s ongoing sentencing trial for a 2010 explosion in its natural gas lines running a suburb in San Bruno, a suburb south of San Francisco, inflated, let arise.
The American district of William Alsup, which has repeatedly crippled PG&E for the sloppy maintenance of its equipment, is considering to order changes that could lead to the electricity network being forced to shut down its power lines even more frequently during dry and windy conditions than it has done in recent years.
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Associated Press author Michael Liedtke made a contribution from San Francisco.