California utilities can be held liable for economic damages from wildfires caused by their equipment, even if they followed all applicable safety regulations.
The deadliest and most destructive of last month’s Wine Country wildfires may have been started by electrical equipment not owned or installed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the utility said in a legal filing Thursday.
The filing states that while California fire investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the Tubbs Fire, which destroyed entire neighborhoods of Santa Rosa, “preliminary investigations suggest that this fire might have been caused by electrical equipment that was owned, installed and maintained by a third party.”
A spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said he did not know the source of PG&E’s information.
The filing, which comes in response to several wildfire-related lawsuits against PG&E, gives no supporting evidence for the claim other than referring to an electric incident report that the utility submitted to state regulators in the wake of the fires.
The report, released to the public last week, described Cal Fire investigators taking possession of customer-owned overhead lines on a property near Calistoga. Although the exact address was redacted from the incident report by the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E’s filing Thursday describes it as being near where the Tubbs Fire began.
A PG&E spokesman declined to elaborate on the filing’s assertion, noting that Cal Fire’s investigation is still under way.
“Our motion speaks for itself,” spokesman Keith Stephens said.
Cal Fire has said it is examining whether PG&E’s power lines may have played a role in starting the many fires that erupted during a fierce windstorm on Oct. 8.
Cal Fire officials said Thursday that they would not comment on any of their investigations. As of Wednesday, 28 investigators continued working to determine the cause of the wildfires in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Yuba counties, said Deputy Chief Scott McLean, a Cal Fire spokesman.
“We have not released any information to anybody,” McLean said. “Our investigations are ours, and I’m not sure what PG&E is talking about.”
Cal Fire officials said they don’t expect to release a cause of any of the fires anytime soon. Investigations often take months or more than a year to wrap up.
“We want to make sure we get the job done right,” McLean said.
October’s wildfires, which included blazes in the Sierra foothills and Orange County, caused more than $3.3 billion in damage, according to an estimate from the state’s insurance commissioner. California utilities can be held liable for economic damages from wildfires caused by their equipment, even if they followed all applicable safety regulations.
Most of PG&E’s filing argues against a move by attorneys who have sued the company over the Oct. 8 wildfires to consolidate their separate lawsuits into one proceeding in San Francisco. Instead, PG&E argues that there should be separate suits based on the location of each fire concerned. All plaintiffs affected by the Atlas Peak Fire, for example, would be part of a single proceeding, while those affected by the Tubbs Fire would be in a separate proceeding.
PG&E submitted the filing to the Judicial Council of California, asking the council’s chair to coordinate the suits into five separate proceedings based on location. The council, the policy-making body for California’s court system, has the authority to coordinate proceedings in complex cases.
Cal Fire investigators have been at the scene of a possible point of origin for the Tubbs Fire on a hillside along Bennett Lane just off Highway 128 in Calistoga.
Several neighbors reported seeing the fire spark around 9:45 p.m. on Oct. 8 before the flames raced west toward Sonoma County on their way to killing 22 people and destroying thousands of structures. The fire has been termed the most destructive in state history.
A Chronicle reporter and photographer visited the site last month. Much of it was encircled by yellow crime tape and monitored by a private security guard. Investigators walked up and down a steep driveway next to small colored stake flags that marked the fire’s burn patterns farther down on the hill.
Two guards at the bottom of the driveway would not give a Chronicle photographer access to the site Thursday night.
PG&E contends in a new court filing that a private power line may have started the deadly Tubbs fire that raced through Santa Rosa last month and became the most destructive wildfire in state history.
The Tubbs fire, which killed 21 people and destroyed more than 4,400 homes in Sonoma County, remains under state investigation. At least 10 lawsuits with more than 100 plaintiffs had been filed last week against PG&E claiming poorly maintained power lines were responsible for Northern California blazes that erupted Oct. 8, including the Tubbs fire.
But “preliminary investigations suggest that this fire might have been caused by electrical equipment that was owned, installed and maintained by a third party not named in these actions,” PG&E attorneys wrote in a filing Thursday with the Judicial Council of California, the policymaking body of the California courts.
PG&E did not name the third party but referenced a Napa County location near Bennett Lane and Highway 128 north of Calistoga where investigators have focused their work on the cause of the Tubbs fire. Cal Fire officials have seized power equipment and privately owned electric lines at a undisclosed property in the area, according to separate PG&E filings made public last month by state utility regulators.
The new PG&E filing does not offer any evidence that the reported third-party electrical equipment was responsible for the Tubbs fire. It makes clear investigators with Cal Fire and the state Pubic Utilities Commission have not identified a cause.
“The Cal Fire and CPUC investigations are still ongoing,” PG&E spokesman Keith Stephens said in a statement “They haven’t determined the cause of any of the wildfires yet. Our motion speaks for itself.”
The Tubbs fire began shortly before 10 p.m. Oct. 8 and ultimately burned 36,807 acres on a westward path into northern Santa Rosa, where it destroyed 2,900 homes inside city limits and about 5,500 structures countywide.
It was by far the most destructive of the wind-whipped blazes that last month ravaged Northern California, together accounting for estimated property losses of $3.2 billion, making them the costliest in U.S. history.
PG&E filings with utility regulators last month documented 10 cases in Sonoma and Napa counties of toppled trees, downed lines and other damaged equipment in areas close to the origins of local blazes, including the Tubbs fire.
Cal Fire investigators have collected as evidence damaged power poles, wires and other pieces of utility equipment from at least 8 of the 10 sites in Sonoma and Napa counties where PG&E reported “electrical safety incidents,” according to the CPUC filings.
Last month, a Bennett Lane property was roped off with crime scene tape, and private security guards were working 12-hour shifts to secure the area.
One of the utility filings noted Cal Fire investigators took possession of equipment at a fire damaged home near Calistoga, including a “secondary service line that had detached from the fire-damaged home.”
The report noted that “Cal Fire also took possession of multiple sections of customer-owned overhead conductor that served multiple pieces of customer-owned equipment on the property.”
Cal Fire investigators have repeatedly stressed that their investigation is ongoing and has not identified a cause of any of the 30 blazes that broke out last month across Northern California during an unusually fierce, dry wind storm. They’ve said determining causes could take years.
Deputy Chief Scott McLean, a Cal Fire spokesman, said he had seen media reports about PG&E’s latest filings, but did not have any information about them. He said 28 Cal Fire investigators are working to determine the cause of the wildfires, and they need to be allowed to complete their work.
“Our investigation is ongoing in a very meticulous and very thoughtful matter, and I will not say anything to jeopardize that investigation,” McLean said.
PG&E attorneys submitted the new court filing Thursday to support their case that 15 pending lawsuits against the company shouldn’t be consolidated before a single judge in San Francisco. The company contends that the fires are all different and therefore the cases should go to five different judges in five distinct geographic areas where the blazes occurred. The judicial council hasn’t made any decision on the request.
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In new court filings PG&E argues a “third party” tapping into the utility’s electrical lines in Calistoga may have been the cause of the Tubbs fire.
The claim comes in documents arguing against combing 15 separate lawsuits filed over the North Bay firestorm.
“Although Plaintiffs have rushed to file complaints often while the fires were still burning, the reality is that no one currently knows what caused any of these fires,” the company argues.
But in the Tubbs fire that began in Calistoga, PG&E says, “preliminary investigations suggest that this fire might have been caused by electrical equipment that was owned, installed and maintained by a third party not named in these actions.”
That suggestion is apparently based on the report PG&E filed Oct. 27 with state regulators. It recounts how Cal Fire investigators had seized several fused wires, near Calistoga, as well as “a secondary service line that had detached from the fire-damaged home.”
Investigators also took “multiple sections of customer-owned overhead conductor that served multiple pieces of customer-owned equipment on the property. No damage to PG&E equipment was readily apparent.”
In its regulatory report on this incident, the utility goes on to say, “This information is preliminary and PG&E is fully cooperating with Cal Fire.”
As for its latest court filing, company officials had no further comment late Thursday.