[ad_1]
Six months after the burning of the camp that killed 85 people and destroyed the city of Paradise, residents of the Sierra Nevada communities, east of Chico, have obtained confirmation of what has long been suspected: aging PG & E transmission lines caused the fire that destroyed so many lives.
This is a quick conclusion compared to the 16 months that the survivors of the Tubbs fire in 2017 were waiting to receive Cal Fire's much less decisive report on this fire. After a long process of disposal on a site originally largely destroyed by fire, the agency announced earlier this year that electrical equipment owned by a former property owner of the county Napa had probably caused the 36,807-acre fire that had devastated the west from Mount Mayacamas to Santa Rosa. killing 22 people and destroying more than 4,700 homes. This discovery absolved PG & E from any liability and left the Tubbs one of the only major fires in the October 2017 fire storm, which was not caused by the company's equipment.
Camp and Tubbass fire investigations developed along distinct paths, at different rates, and resulted in disparate conclusions.
There are no standards for fire investigation deadlines because "every fire is different," said Cal Fire spokesman Michael Mohler. He declined to discuss the factors that prompted the investigation of the Tubbs fire to fade, fearing that it would reveal investigative techniques and hinder the work of the Butte County Attorney in the review. Cal Fire's conclusions.
"We do not work with a clock. We work according to what we need to do, "said Mohler. "Delays are never in our schedule, and every fire poses different challenges."
Wednesday's report on the cause of the fires in the camp will not change the course of bankruptcy proceedings for more than 10,000 households who claim compensation from PG & E for their losses in 2017 and 2018 as part of a process recently set up under the supervision of the Bankruptcy Judge.
"There is a working assumption from the beginning that this fire (the camp fire) was a PG & E affair," said Santa Rosa-based lawyer, Roy Miller, who lost his home in Wikiup in the Tubbs fire and is part of a legal group representing about 4,000 households having lost property in major fires in the state. "It's just the last piece of this puzzle."
On November 8th, near Pulga, the campfire rose to 153,336 acres, burning eastward in the hill town and extending westward to Concow, Paradise, Magalia, and the suburbs. is from Chico. It destroyed 18,804 structures, including nearly 15,000 homes. According to a recent PG & E estimate, the camp fire liability would be $ 10.5 billion.
By November, PG & E's public documents and statements foreshadowed Cal Fire's conclusion. In a statement released on Wednesday, utility officials said Cal Fire's decision that the fire had begun with transmission lines near Pulga "is in line with the company's previous statements."
In contrast, Cal Fire's findings regarding the Tubbs fire, announced on January 24, departed from widespread assumptions about how he had begun. These expectations were fueled in part by investigations of other fires in 2017 in which Cal Fire identified PG & E's electrical equipment as being the primary source of ignition. In addition, PG & E had also informed the public services of the presence, in the area originally caused of the fire outside Calistoga, of equipment whose failure had occurred. place at the moment of the outbreak of hell.
The agency's determination, set out in an 80-page report, that private privately-owned equipment maintained by Bennett Lane had sparked the Tubbs fire had moved many people who survived the storm. and left some uncertainty as to whether they would become an isolated group unable to seek redress from the investor. public service for catastrophic losses. Fire liabilities in Tubbs were estimated at $ 17 billion.
[ad_2]
Source link