PG&E canceled planned power shut-off in Paradise area just before Camp fire broke out
SACRAMENTO - When strong autumn winds roared into Northern California, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. decided it was going to take an extreme action to prevent a repeat of last year's firestorms that destroyed thousands of homes in Santa Rosa.
On Oct. 14, the company cautiously shut off power to 60,000 Sierra foothills and North Bay customers, hoping to prevent any downed power lines from sparking a fire. On Nov. 6, PG&E again began warning 70,000 customers - including those in the town of Paradise - that it might flip the switch in the face of fire danger.
But for reasons that remain unclear, the utility decided not to shut off power that day.
Fierce winds picked up in the Sierra foothills that morning, fueling the most destructive fire in California history, which has burned nearly 10,000 homes, killed at least 71 people and left more than 1,000 unaccounted for.
The cause of the Camp fire is still under investigation, but there is suspicion that, like several of the Wine Country blazes last year, it was sparked by power lines. PG&E said a transmission line in the area went offline 15 minutes before the fire was first reported, and the company found a damaged transmission tower near where investigators have said the fire began.
PG&E has said weather conditions “did not warrant” a shut-off but has declined to explain further. Utility officials have said a pre-emptive blackout would probably not have prevented the Camp fire, even if power lines turn out to be the cause. The company doesn't shut off transmission lines that operate at or above 115 kilovolts, the size of the line under scrutiny in the Paradise blaze.
Transmission lines can be critical to providing power to millions of customers, the company said, whereas more localized distribution lines - the kind that are shut down when conditions are determined to be dangerous - funnel power to homes and businesses.
The electrical system is also under investigation as a possible cause of the Woolsey fire in Southern California, which destroyed 800 structures and killed 3. Southern California Edison reported an issue with a circuit in the utility's Chatsworth substation minutes before the fire broke out in the same area.
Power companies are expanding the use of planned blackouts to prevent their lines from sparking infernos in a state still struggling with a new paradigm of wildfire danger. Yet the practice - prompted by criticism of past inaction and encouraged by California legislators this year - has led to calls for additional guidelines and oversight.
And then there are the trade-offs. Shutting down power can endanger hospital patients or people who rely on oxygen tanks and other lifesaving electrical equipment and can hinder the ability of residents to receive emergency warnings. But failing to turn off fragile electrical infrastructure during high-risk scenarios can be catastrophic.
“I think that is the crux of the public and the policy debate,” said Elizaveta Malashenko, director of the safety and enforcement division at the California Public Utilities Commission. “How do you strike the right balance and manage the risks on both sides?”
The future of the utilities hangs in the balance, too. Commission President Michael Picker raised the question on Thursday of whether PG&E needs to be broken up, promising an examination of the company's organizational structure to determine the best way to ensure safety.
Utilities make the decision to shut off power on their own, on a case-by-case basis, depending on predictive models and weather observations. That it's so informal may explain why there's no precedent for state regulators to levy fines, either for failing to act or for too aggressively turning off power.
Until recently, San Diego Gas & Electric was the only California utility that de-energized power lines during high-risk fire conditions. Over the summer, state regulators strengthened the SDG&E guidelines and applied them to all investor-owned utilities as a fire prevention tool of last resort. The CPUC is holding a public meeting on de-energization next month.
As soon as the public outreach began, local officials protested.
City leaders in Malibu, designated an “extreme risk” area, raised serious concerns about Southern California Edison's public safety shut-off plan months before Santa Ana winds swept the deadly Woolsey fire to their doorstep.
City Manager Reva Feldman wrote in a July letter to the California Public Utilities Commission that most Malibu residents live in remote areas accessed by a single road, making evacuations difficult. Without power, internet access would be lost, and residents without landlines would be cut off from emergency alerts and evacuation instructions. Traffic signals wouldn't work. And water would cease to flow in a system that relies on powered pump stations, hindering firefighting efforts.
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