Pacific Gas and Electric won’t face criminal charges for its role in starting several northern California fires in 2018. District attorneys in Sonoma, Napa, Humboldt and Lake counties announced that they can’t prove a case. According to a press release from Sonoma County district attorney Jill Ravitch, the necessary evidence burned up along with everything else…
The cases that were referred for prosecution all required proof that PG&E acted with criminal negligence in failing to remove dead and dying trees. Under California law, criminal negligence requires proof of actions that are reckless and incompatible with a proper regard for human life, and any charges must be proven unanimously to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Proving PG&E failed in their duty to remove trees was made particularly difficult in this context as the locations where the fires occurred, and where physical evidence could have been located, were decimated by the fires.
Last year, Cal Fire determined that some of the many fires that roared through California’s wine country began when trees or other vegetation came into contact with PG&E electric lines. The deadliest fire – the Tubbs fire – which killed 22 people and spread as far as city neighborhoods in Santa Rosa, was not linked to PG&E’s equipment according to Cal Fire. That one was apparently started by electric lines strung across private property by the landowners.
So far, prosecutors in other counties affected by fires linked to PG&E infrastructure have declined to charge PG&E with crimes. But that’s cold comfort. Ravitch was careful to point out that “PG&E remains on federal criminal probation and is a defendant in many private civil cases arising out of the wildfires”, including one that the County of Sonoma is pursuing. The combined liability PG&E faces from those fires as well as last year’s even deadlier Camp Fire is expected to top $30 billion. Who gets paid and how much is now in the hands of a federal bankruptcy court.