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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, December 10, 2024…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the late 1990s, California voters approved a law that required public schools to teach most classes only in English. After that, many public school districts across the state essentially eliminated their bilingual programs. Voters eventually repealed this law back in 2016. But \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2024/12/bilingual-education/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a new investigation from our partner CalMatters\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has found that the state’s bilingual education system is still recovering, while students struggle to get the support they need.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crews are trying to get a handle on \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/malibu-franklin-fire\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a fast growing wildfire \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">burning in Malibu. The Franklin Fire was first reported around 11 pm Monday night. It’s since burned through more than 2,600 acres in the hills north of Pepperdine University. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The LA Unified School District \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/education/early-childhood-education-pre-k/california-preschool-program-lausd-under-capacity-higher-income\">is opening up\u003c/a> its state subsidized preschools to higher income families.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 class=\"entry-title \">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2024/12/bilingual-education/\">\u003cstrong>California Banned Bilingual Education For Almost 20 years. It Still Hasn’t Recovered\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Civil Rights Movement ushered in a new era of bilingual education, and the California Legislature went further, requiring the model for students still learning English from 1976 until the anti-immigrant backlash of the 1990s. Voters banned it again in 1998, only reversing the latest prohibition in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have found bilingual education helps students learn English faster and can boost their standardized test scores, increase graduation rates, better prepare them for college and much more. California has removed the official barriers to offering this type of instruction since 2016, and the state now champions bilingualism and biliteracy, encouraging all students to strive for both. But eight years after repeal, California schools have yet to recover. A decades-long enrollment slump in bilingual-teacher prep programs has led to a decimated teacher pipeline. And underinvestment by the Legislature, paired with a hamstrung state Education Department, has limited the pace of bilingual education’s comeback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result? A rare case in which Californians can say Texas is inspiring. Both states enroll more than 1 million students still learning English — but last year, the Lone Star State put 40% of them in bilingual classrooms. California managed that for just 10%.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArticlePage-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/malibu-franklin-fire\">\u003cstrong>Fire In Malibu Prompts Evacuations, School Closures\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/12/9/franklin-fire\">fast-moving brush fire\u003c/a> in Malibu grew to more than 2,600 acres by mid-Tuesday amid high winds and extreme fire danger. Authorities warned the fire “continues to pose a significant threat” and asked that both residents and visitors avoid the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mandatory evacuations affecting roughly 6,000 people are in place, Malibu schools are closed and Pacific Coast Highway, the main way in and out, is shuttered as firefighters work in tough conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Franklin Fire started shortly before 11 p.m. near Malibu Canyon Road and Station Boundary, according to L.A. County Fire officials. City officials said the fire sparked about three miles north of Pacific Coast Highway, and that the cause was not immediately clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At around 3 a.m., Malibu officials reported that the fire had spread south over PCH, threatening structures by Malibu Pier, Malibu Road, Malibu Knolls and Sweetwater Mesa\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArticlePage-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/education/early-childhood-education-pre-k/california-preschool-program-lausd-under-capacity-higher-income\">\u003cstrong>LAUSD Opens Up Subsidized Preschool To Higher-Income Families\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of spots in its subsidized preschools vacant, the Los Angeles Unified School District is opening up enrollment to higher-income families to fill spaces currently not being used by low-income families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"Enhancement\" data-align-right=\"\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement-content\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement-details\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement-title\">The district has more than 80 preschools for 2- to 4-year-olds, known as \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.lausd.org/Page/15507\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>early education centers\u003c/u>,\u003c/a> funded through the \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/op/cdprograms.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>California State Preschool Program (CSPP)\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. The state requires that providers \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/serving2yrolds.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">prioritize students\u003c/a> based on certain criteria, like income and living situation.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement-title\">But since the pandemic and the \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://laist.com/news/education/early-childhood-education-pre-k/what-is-transitional-kindergarten-what-to-expect-when-enrolling-your-child\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>growth of transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, the district has been under capacity at its preschools, said Dean Tagawa, who directs LAUSD’s Early Childhood Education Division. They’ve been at around 70% full — equivalent to about 3,000 open spots. Now, the district is seeking families regardless of income. “This idea of being able to expand to reach other families that may not have qualified in the past is pretty exciting — to be able to get more families in and be able to provide more services,” Tagawa said.\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, December 10, 2024…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the late 1990s, California voters approved a law that required public schools to teach most classes only in English. After that, many public school districts across the state essentially eliminated their bilingual programs. Voters eventually repealed this law back in 2016. But \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2024/12/bilingual-education/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a new investigation from our partner CalMatters\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has found that the state’s bilingual education system is still recovering, while students struggle to get the support they need.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crews are trying to get a handle on \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/malibu-franklin-fire\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a fast growing wildfire \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">burning in Malibu. The Franklin Fire was first reported around 11 pm Monday night. It’s since burned through more than 2,600 acres in the hills north of Pepperdine University. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The LA Unified School District \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/education/early-childhood-education-pre-k/california-preschool-program-lausd-under-capacity-higher-income\">is opening up\u003c/a> its state subsidized preschools to higher income families.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 class=\"entry-title \">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2024/12/bilingual-education/\">\u003cstrong>California Banned Bilingual Education For Almost 20 years. It Still Hasn’t Recovered\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Civil Rights Movement ushered in a new era of bilingual education, and the California Legislature went further, requiring the model for students still learning English from 1976 until the anti-immigrant backlash of the 1990s. Voters banned it again in 1998, only reversing the latest prohibition in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have found bilingual education helps students learn English faster and can boost their standardized test scores, increase graduation rates, better prepare them for college and much more. California has removed the official barriers to offering this type of instruction since 2016, and the state now champions bilingualism and biliteracy, encouraging all students to strive for both. But eight years after repeal, California schools have yet to recover. A decades-long enrollment slump in bilingual-teacher prep programs has led to a decimated teacher pipeline. And underinvestment by the Legislature, paired with a hamstrung state Education Department, has limited the pace of bilingual education’s comeback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result? A rare case in which Californians can say Texas is inspiring. Both states enroll more than 1 million students still learning English — but last year, the Lone Star State put 40% of them in bilingual classrooms. California managed that for just 10%.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArticlePage-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/malibu-franklin-fire\">\u003cstrong>Fire In Malibu Prompts Evacuations, School Closures\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/12/9/franklin-fire\">fast-moving brush fire\u003c/a> in Malibu grew to more than 2,600 acres by mid-Tuesday amid high winds and extreme fire danger. Authorities warned the fire “continues to pose a significant threat” and asked that both residents and visitors avoid the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mandatory evacuations affecting roughly 6,000 people are in place, Malibu schools are closed and Pacific Coast Highway, the main way in and out, is shuttered as firefighters work in tough conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Franklin Fire started shortly before 11 p.m. near Malibu Canyon Road and Station Boundary, according to L.A. County Fire officials. City officials said the fire sparked about three miles north of Pacific Coast Highway, and that the cause was not immediately clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At around 3 a.m., Malibu officials reported that the fire had spread south over PCH, threatening structures by Malibu Pier, Malibu Road, Malibu Knolls and Sweetwater Mesa\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArticlePage-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/education/early-childhood-education-pre-k/california-preschool-program-lausd-under-capacity-higher-income\">\u003cstrong>LAUSD Opens Up Subsidized Preschool To Higher-Income Families\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of spots in its subsidized preschools vacant, the Los Angeles Unified School District is opening up enrollment to higher-income families to fill spaces currently not being used by low-income families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"Enhancement\" data-align-right=\"\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement-content\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement-details\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement-title\">The district has more than 80 preschools for 2- to 4-year-olds, known as \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.lausd.org/Page/15507\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>early education centers\u003c/u>,\u003c/a> funded through the \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/op/cdprograms.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>California State Preschool Program (CSPP)\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. The state requires that providers \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/serving2yrolds.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">prioritize students\u003c/a> based on certain criteria, like income and living situation.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"AudioEnhancement-title\">But since the pandemic and the \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://laist.com/news/education/early-childhood-education-pre-k/what-is-transitional-kindergarten-what-to-expect-when-enrolling-your-child\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>growth of transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, the district has been under capacity at its preschools, said Dean Tagawa, who directs LAUSD’s Early Childhood Education Division. They’ve been at around 70% full — equivalent to about 3,000 open spots. Now, the district is seeking families regardless of income. “This idea of being able to expand to reach other families that may not have qualified in the past is pretty exciting — to be able to get more families in and be able to provide more services,” Tagawa said.\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "californians-pay-billions-for-power-companies-wildfire-prevention-efforts-are-they-cost-effective",
"title": "Californians Pay Billions for Power Companies’ Wildfire Prevention Efforts. Are They Cost-Effective?",
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"headTitle": "Californians Pay Billions for Power Companies’ Wildfire Prevention Efforts. Are They Cost-Effective? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Diane Moss lost her home in the Santa Monica Mountains after power lines ignited the apocalyptic Woolsey Fire in 2018. Since then, she’s pressed for a safer electric grid in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so easy to forget the risk that we live in — until it happens to you,” said Moss, a longtime clean energy advocate. “All of us in California have to think about how we better prepare to survive disaster, which is only going to be more of a problem as the climate changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, California’s power companies have been doing just that: insulating power lines and burying lines underground, trimming trees, deploying drones and using risk-detection technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abc0020\">wildfires across the U.S. intensify\u003c/a>, California is on the leading edge of efforts to prevent more deadly and destructive fires ignited by downed power lines and malfunctioning equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Customers have shouldered a hefty price for wildfire safety measures. From 2019 through 2023, the California Public Utilities Commission authorized the three largest utilities to collect $27 billion in wildfire prevention and insurance costs from ratepayers, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/office-of-governmental-affairs-division/reports/2024/2024-sb-695-report.pdf#page=56\">report\u003c/a> to the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the costs are projected to keep rising: The three companies — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — continue to seek billions more from customers for wildfire prevention spending. Rates are expected to continue outpacing inflation\u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/office-of-governmental-affairs-division/reports/2024/2024-sb-695-report.pdf#page=17\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> through 2027\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire safety projects are a big part of the reason that Californians pay the\u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a\"> highest electric bills\u003c/a> in the nation outside of Hawaii. Other reasons include rooftop solar incentives, new transmission systems and upgrades for electric vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Higher electric bills have helped fuel a\u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/766\"> statewide affordability crisis\u003c/a> alongside soaring housing prices, expensive groceries and costly gasoline. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2024/02/utility-rate-hikes-california/\">Small businesses\u003c/a> are feeling the burden, along with the state’s poorest residents:\u003ca href=\"https://www.publicadvocates.cpuc.ca.gov/press-room/commentary/240311-setting-the-record-straight-fixed-charge\"> One in three\u003c/a> low-income households served by the three utilities fell behind in paying their power bills this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s three investor-owned utilities are regulated monopolies, so when they spend money on costs related to wildfires, they recover it through customers’ bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The price of electricity has ignited debate about how much California families should bear for the cost of wildfire prevention, whether utilities are balancing risk and affordability and whether the money is being spent wisely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/9wC3J/29/\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Loretta Lynch, a former head of the state utilities commission, said lack of oversight is a problem, with the commission “rubber-stamping outrageous costs” and allowing the companies to “address wildfires in the most expensive, least effective way possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the biggest controversies is whether the utilities should be spending so much on burying power lines, an extremely costly and slow process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, \u003ca href=\"https://information.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2022-115/index.html\">a state audit\u003c/a> concluded that the utilities commission and the state’s advocates office must do more to verify whether utilities were completing the work they sought payment for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three companies say the billions of dollars in spending is necessary as climate change worsens \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-wildfire-map-tracker/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADM7b5fFuSe1NT8oR5odtxgzBtp-K&gclid=CjwKCAiA0rW6BhAcEiwAQH28IjlGhALav1D1122TKnYxkFmzscYW2x42CGExP5nWM4kziIahkVFJ6hoCkmAQAvD_BwE\">wildfires across the state\u003c/a>. Utility equipment has caused less than 10% of the state’s fires but nearly half of its most destructive fires, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/wildfires\">according to the utilities commission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E, which \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M338/K725/338725560.PDF\">a few years ago came out of bankruptcy\u003c/a> triggered by its liability for several deadly, destructive fires, has adopted the stance that \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/outages-and-safety/outage-preparedness-and-support/wildfire-mitigation-plan-executive-summary.pdf#page=2\">“catastrophic wildfires shall stop.”\u003c/a> The company, which serves the most high-risk areas in California, is the state’s largest spender on wildfire prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E plans to bury 10,000 miles of power lines in its highest-risk areas — work that is highly contentious because it is costly and slow. The company has buried \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en/newsroom/press-release-details.5943ff56-7c74-4c60-ab87-602de41c5054.html\">800 miles since 2021\u003c/a>, with each mile costing between $3 and $4 million. Last year, the commission approved a $3.7 billion plan for PG&E to \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M520/K799/520799852.pdf#page=289\">bury 1,230 miles\u003c/a> of lines through 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sumeet Singh, PG&E’s chief operating officer, told CalMatters that the utility is concerned about rates, too. He said the company is “very committed to stabilizing our customer rates as we go forward without compromising safety. I think that’s clear that it’s a non-negotiable….There’s a pretty robust process and oversight that we are under.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin Geraghty, chief operating officer of SDG&E, called the wildfire spending process “the most highly-scrutinized, regulatory utility process I have ever been involved in, in my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/10/30/governor-newsom-issues-executive-order-tackling-rising-electric-bills/\"> issued an executive order\u003c/a> in October aimed at tackling the high costs of electricity, asking state agencies to evaluate their oversight of wildfire projects and ensure that the utilities are focused on “cost-effective” measures. He is seeking proposals for changes in rules or laws by Jan. 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3 id=\"h-reduced-to-ash\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reduced to ash\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The spark for the increased spending came seven years ago \u003ca href=\"https://ca.water.usgs.gov/california-drought/california-drought-comparisons.html\">after California suffered one of its worst droughts\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/families-scour-burnt-ruins-for-missing-in-california-1507936103?mod=article_inline\">a series of devastating wildfires\u003c/a> in 2017 and 2018, many ignited by utility equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sixteen fires were caused by \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/safety-policy-division/reports/root-cause-analyses-of-the-2017-18-wildfires.pdf\">PG&E equipment\u003c/a> during a rash of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/wildfires/october-2017-wildfires\">October 2017\u003c/a> fires that decimated Napa, Sonoma and other Northern California counties. That December, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/12/4/thomas-fire/\">Thomas Fire\u003c/a>, sparked by Southern California Edison equipment, engulfed parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the devastation of 2017 was only a prelude to an even graver year. On Nov. 8, 2018, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2018/11/8/camp-fire/\">Camp Fire\u003c/a> leveled the town of Paradise, killing 85 people, making it the deadliest wildfire in state history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Camp Fire was caused by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.buttecounty.net/342/Camp-Fire\">failure of an old metal hook\u003c/a> attached to a PG&E transmission tower. An intense wind event pushed the fire at a rate of roughly 80 football fields per minute at its peak. The company in 2020 pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for its role in the disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same day as the destruction in Paradise, another fire ignited some 470 miles south. In the Simi Hills of Ventura County, Southern California, Edison \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/safety-and-enforcement-division/investigations-wildfires/sed-investigation-report---woolsey-fire---redacted.pdf\">wires in two separate locations\u003c/a> made contact with others, triggering “arc” flashes that rained hot metal fragments and sparks onto the dry brush below. These triggered two blazes, which soon merged to form the Woolsey Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Ana winds spread the conflagration across parched terrain, with swaths of the nationally protected Santa Monica Mountains reduced to ash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11953264\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11953264 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy.jpg\" alt=\"A burning structure with a firefighter in the foreground.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A home burns as the Camp Fire rages through Paradise on Nov. 8, 2018. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/The Associated Press)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moss, the clean energy advocate, evacuated her home with her son that day. Her husband, clinging to hope, stayed until the blaze threatened to swallow him whole. Their neighborhood near Malibu, with its heavily wooded surroundings, was no match for the inferno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My husband stayed until the last minute when it just — it looked like it could cost him his life,” Moss said. “Everybody else left, and just about all of us lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three people died. Moss’ home was gone, reduced to a hollowed-out structure and charred rubble, along with about 100,000 acres of\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/management/2018-woolsey-fire.htm\"> parkland and wilderness\u003c/a>, more than any other fire in recorded history for that area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, downed PG&E lines ignited Sonoma County’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-fight-california-fires-firefighters-seek-to-hold-the-line-in-sonoma-11572464115\">Kincade Fire\u003c/a>. Then, two years later, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2021/7/13/dixie-fire/\">the Dixie Fire\u003c/a>, also caused by PG&E equipment, became the \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calfire-website/our-impact/fire-statistics/top-20-largest-ca-wildfires.pdf?rev=097f901c128347149e2614f2fca4f546&hash=27DDE83DFEF9A69E67C73765892A2B75\">second-largest wildfire\u003c/a> in California history, burning 963,000 acres north of Chico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2021 Dixie Fire, which claimed one life and destroyed 1,311 structures, was the last catastrophic wildfire in California confirmed to be caused by utility equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3 id=\"h-it-just-takes-the-wrong-ignition\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>‘It just takes the wrong ignition’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The number of fires triggered by the companies’ equipment fluctuates from year to year, driven by the huge variability in California’s weather. However, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/wildfires\">data from 2014 through 2023\u003c/a> indicate there were substantially fewer fires last year than in other recent years. SDG&E equipment caused 16 fires after its high of 32 fires in 2015, Southern California Edison had 90 fires, compared to a 2021 high of 173, and PG&E reported 374 fires after a high of 510 in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25355999/pges-2023-annual-report-on-compliance-revision-1-r1.pdf#page=6\">PG&E also reported\u003c/a> that fires in its highest-risk areas trended down every month of 2023 compared to the same months in previous years. But that progress reversed this year, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/pg-e-is-racing-to-stem-increasing-fires-ignited-by-its-power-lines-0228c556\">62 fires\u003c/a> reported by August in high-risk areas, compared to 65 in all of 2023. (PG&E would not provide 2024 fire data to CalMatters.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11705327\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11705327 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn.jpg\" alt=\"The Woolsey Fire burns along the ridgeline off Cornell Road near Paramount Ranch on the morning of Nov. 9, 2018 in Agoura Hills.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1274\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-1020x677.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-1200x796.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-1180x783.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-960x637.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-240x159.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-375x249.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-520x345.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Woolsey Fire burns along the ridgeline off Cornell Road near Paramount Ranch on the morning of Nov. 9, 2018, in Agoura Hills. \u003ccite>(Matthew Simmons/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caroline Thomas Jacobs, inaugural director of the state Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, established in 2021 to oversee utility safety, said progress can be hard to measure. Nevertheless, she said she has seen a cultural shift at electric companies in recent years, with a more focused approach in high-risk areas and an environment that empowers workers to prioritize safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv id=\"datawrapper-vis-Va70l\" class=\"datawrapper-script-embed vis-height-fixed vis-d3-area\">\n\u003cp>“It just takes the wrong ignition … under the right conditions, to have a catastrophic fire,” Thomas Jacobs said. “But are we in a better place? The numbers seem to indicate we’re moving in the right direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E has installed more than 1,500 weather stations and 600 AI-enabled cameras to detect severe weather and ignitions, Singh said. Enhanced safety systems now cut power to lines within a tenth of a second. The utility has also cleared vegetation, ordered power shutoffs during high-risk times, insulated lines and buried some lines underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where do we see the greatest risk?” Singh said the company asks itself, and “What is the most cost-effective way to be able to reduce that risk for every dollar that’s spent?”\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Va70l/17/\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Southern California Edison said since its investments began in 2019, the risk of catastrophic wildfire in its system has dropped between 85% and 90%. The company plans to bury 600 miles of lines in high-risk areas but it is relying much more on less-expensive insulating technology, which has already been used on more than 6,000 miles of lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SDG&E began prioritizing wildfire prevention, including underground and insulated lines, a decade ahead of the other two utilities after its lines sparked three major fires in 2007. The company has avoided a catastrophic fire since 2007 despite operating in one of the nation’s most fire-prone regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We continue to double down and do and do more tomorrow than we did yesterday,” said Brian D’Agostino, the utility’s vice president of wildfire and climate science. “We don’t take a single day without a fire for granted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Wildfire spending — ‘an odd system’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Critics say the scramble to address the wildfire crisis has left the state vulnerable to overspending by utilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About two months before the Camp and Woolsey fires, outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018 signed a $1 billion plan to thin forests and clear out the tinderbox of California’s dead and dying trees. That measure came too late to prevent the devastation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, it opened the door to increased spending by utilities beyond limits set in the highly deliberative process known as their general rate cases, which determine what Californians pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and the Legislature in 2019 created a $21 billion wildfire fund paid for by Wall Street investors and California ratepayers to help PG&E exit bankruptcy and protect utilities from being financially threatened by the wildfires they cause. The utilities cannot access the state’s $21 billion fund unless the energy safety office approves their wildfire plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/H4pTN/16/\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One problem, critics say, is that the safety plans are approved by one government entity while the spending to carry them out is approved by another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We now have this very odd system,” said Lynch, who served on the utilities commission from 2000 through 2004. “The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety reviews the plans, puts out guidelines, but then the (commission) still has to ratify the plans so that the utilities can take money from their ratepayers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Wildfire safety goes underground\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On a temperate, clear morning in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Placerville in October, a PG&E construction crew donned yellow jackets and safety helmets and went about the work of burying power lines along a narrow, wooded road. Overhead lines snaked through thick trees in this area — prime fire risk territory. The workers buried the lines in a trench that had been dug using a heavy piece of equipment designed to cut hard concrete and soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once those power lines are buried and activated, their risk of fires is all but eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12016434\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12016434 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marking tape covers a layer of sand in the trench. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Burying lines in high-risk areas improves reliability amid rising wildfire risks and extreme weather, PG&E’s Singh said. Though it’s pricier up front, it eliminates the yearly expense of trimming trees and vegetation, which makes it a better, long-run value for customers, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Underground is a no-brainer when you look at it from that lens,” Singh said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the high cost and the time it takes to do the work have left some skeptical. The company has buried 800 miles of wires underground since 2021 and plans to bury more than 1,600 by the end of 2026. It aims to get the cost per mile down to $2.8 million by the end of 2026 from $3 million at the end of 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Campbell, assistant deputy director of energy for the public advocates office, a state entity that represents utility customers, said PG&E should consider other means of preventing wildfire, like insulated wires, otherwise known as “covered conductors.” This can be deployed more quickly and at a lower cost, he said and is effective when combined with operational techniques like fast trip settings and power safety shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In some areas, (burying power lines) really is the correct approach to minimize risk. But it’s also very slow and very expensive, and so there’s a need to address safety in as many miles as quickly as possible, to reduce overall risk,” Campbell said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utilities commission has taken a proof-of-concept approach: The commission scaled back PG&E’s plan to bury 2,000 miles through 2026 to 1,230. The commission approved installing covered conductors, or insulated power lines, over 778 miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynch is skeptical of utilities and their big projects because they can profit from them, and Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, says too much spending is going unchecked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sense of urgency following fires paved the way for the multi-billion surge in spending. The commission authorized PG&E, for instance, to spend $4.66 billion on wildfire costs from 2020 through 2022, but the company ultimately spent $11.7 billion and is seeking payment through utility bills, according to The Utility Reform Network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12016435\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12016435\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1536\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PG&E employees and contractors stand next to a trench that was dug in Placer County so that electric cables can be buried to prevent wildfires. Burying lines costs PG&E ratepayers between $3 million and $4 million per mile. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Audits of nearly $2.5 billion in 2019 and 2020 wildfire spending found some costs from PG&E, Southern California Edison and SDG&E may already have been covered by previously approved rates, or more documentation was needed to confirm they had not been covered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utilities challenged many of the findings, saying they didn’t plan to claim some of the costs, and disputed the auditor’s conclusions as well as some of their calculations. In interviews with CalMatters, representatives for all three utilities said the process in place to oversee wildfire spending at the utilities commission was robust and thorough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geraghty, of SDG&E, said the process is transparent, with public comment periods and hearings. Regarding critics who say wildfire prevention should be cheaper and faster, “every one of them had that voice, had that say, had that transparency through this entire process,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some expenses, such as operating costs, have an immediate impact on how much people pay in their bills. But other costs, such as long-term investments in insulating or burying power lines, are stretched out over years, meaning they add to bills for decades to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, these capital costs are growing due to factors like depreciation and the returns utilities are allowed to generate. This creates a compounding effect, meaning wildfire-related capital costs will take up an increasing share of what California customers are charged in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feeling the pinch in Oakland, the fear near Malibu\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The burden of the rising bills is hitting many Californians hard. Roshonda Wilson, of Oakland, couldn’t afford to pay her power bill even though she said she watches television only after sunset, refrains from running unnecessary appliances and is hyper-aware of every energy-consuming action in her household. At one point, PG&E turned her power off this year. “I couldn’t catch up,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, Moss — who has weathered not just the trauma of losing her home near Malibu but also the difficult process of rebuilding — says the expensive wildfire prevention work is critical to prevent more tragedies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though (burying power lines) is costly and time-consuming, the cost and time of not doing it is starting to seem more devastating to a broader swath of people,” Moss said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, the rate hikes have alarmed climate activists who fear rising power bills in California may trigger a backlash against the state’s effort to switch to renewable energy and influence other states, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state, we fear, will start to lose the political will to keep pushing on,” said Mohit Chhabra, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The problem with that is not that California will be a few years late — we can handle that. But the impact on all the other states who are looking at California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett and Miguel Gutierrez Jr. contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "After utility equipment sparked tragic wildfires, PG&E, SCE and SDG&E received state approval to collect $27 billion from ratepayers. As California electric bills soar, questions have emerged about oversight and costs.\r\n\r\n",
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"title": "Californians Pay Billions for Power Companies’ Wildfire Prevention Efforts. Are They Cost-Effective? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Diane Moss lost her home in the Santa Monica Mountains after power lines ignited the apocalyptic Woolsey Fire in 2018. Since then, she’s pressed for a safer electric grid in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so easy to forget the risk that we live in — until it happens to you,” said Moss, a longtime clean energy advocate. “All of us in California have to think about how we better prepare to survive disaster, which is only going to be more of a problem as the climate changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, California’s power companies have been doing just that: insulating power lines and burying lines underground, trimming trees, deploying drones and using risk-detection technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abc0020\">wildfires across the U.S. intensify\u003c/a>, California is on the leading edge of efforts to prevent more deadly and destructive fires ignited by downed power lines and malfunctioning equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Customers have shouldered a hefty price for wildfire safety measures. From 2019 through 2023, the California Public Utilities Commission authorized the three largest utilities to collect $27 billion in wildfire prevention and insurance costs from ratepayers, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/office-of-governmental-affairs-division/reports/2024/2024-sb-695-report.pdf#page=56\">report\u003c/a> to the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the costs are projected to keep rising: The three companies — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — continue to seek billions more from customers for wildfire prevention spending. Rates are expected to continue outpacing inflation\u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/office-of-governmental-affairs-division/reports/2024/2024-sb-695-report.pdf#page=17\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> through 2027\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire safety projects are a big part of the reason that Californians pay the\u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a\"> highest electric bills\u003c/a> in the nation outside of Hawaii. Other reasons include rooftop solar incentives, new transmission systems and upgrades for electric vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Higher electric bills have helped fuel a\u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/766\"> statewide affordability crisis\u003c/a> alongside soaring housing prices, expensive groceries and costly gasoline. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2024/02/utility-rate-hikes-california/\">Small businesses\u003c/a> are feeling the burden, along with the state’s poorest residents:\u003ca href=\"https://www.publicadvocates.cpuc.ca.gov/press-room/commentary/240311-setting-the-record-straight-fixed-charge\"> One in three\u003c/a> low-income households served by the three utilities fell behind in paying their power bills this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s three investor-owned utilities are regulated monopolies, so when they spend money on costs related to wildfires, they recover it through customers’ bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The price of electricity has ignited debate about how much California families should bear for the cost of wildfire prevention, whether utilities are balancing risk and affordability and whether the money is being spent wisely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/9wC3J/29/\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Loretta Lynch, a former head of the state utilities commission, said lack of oversight is a problem, with the commission “rubber-stamping outrageous costs” and allowing the companies to “address wildfires in the most expensive, least effective way possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the biggest controversies is whether the utilities should be spending so much on burying power lines, an extremely costly and slow process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, \u003ca href=\"https://information.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2022-115/index.html\">a state audit\u003c/a> concluded that the utilities commission and the state’s advocates office must do more to verify whether utilities were completing the work they sought payment for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three companies say the billions of dollars in spending is necessary as climate change worsens \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-wildfire-map-tracker/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADM7b5fFuSe1NT8oR5odtxgzBtp-K&gclid=CjwKCAiA0rW6BhAcEiwAQH28IjlGhALav1D1122TKnYxkFmzscYW2x42CGExP5nWM4kziIahkVFJ6hoCkmAQAvD_BwE\">wildfires across the state\u003c/a>. Utility equipment has caused less than 10% of the state’s fires but nearly half of its most destructive fires, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/wildfires\">according to the utilities commission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E, which \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M338/K725/338725560.PDF\">a few years ago came out of bankruptcy\u003c/a> triggered by its liability for several deadly, destructive fires, has adopted the stance that \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/outages-and-safety/outage-preparedness-and-support/wildfire-mitigation-plan-executive-summary.pdf#page=2\">“catastrophic wildfires shall stop.”\u003c/a> The company, which serves the most high-risk areas in California, is the state’s largest spender on wildfire prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E plans to bury 10,000 miles of power lines in its highest-risk areas — work that is highly contentious because it is costly and slow. The company has buried \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en/newsroom/press-release-details.5943ff56-7c74-4c60-ab87-602de41c5054.html\">800 miles since 2021\u003c/a>, with each mile costing between $3 and $4 million. Last year, the commission approved a $3.7 billion plan for PG&E to \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M520/K799/520799852.pdf#page=289\">bury 1,230 miles\u003c/a> of lines through 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sumeet Singh, PG&E’s chief operating officer, told CalMatters that the utility is concerned about rates, too. He said the company is “very committed to stabilizing our customer rates as we go forward without compromising safety. I think that’s clear that it’s a non-negotiable….There’s a pretty robust process and oversight that we are under.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin Geraghty, chief operating officer of SDG&E, called the wildfire spending process “the most highly-scrutinized, regulatory utility process I have ever been involved in, in my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/10/30/governor-newsom-issues-executive-order-tackling-rising-electric-bills/\"> issued an executive order\u003c/a> in October aimed at tackling the high costs of electricity, asking state agencies to evaluate their oversight of wildfire projects and ensure that the utilities are focused on “cost-effective” measures. He is seeking proposals for changes in rules or laws by Jan. 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3 id=\"h-reduced-to-ash\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reduced to ash\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The spark for the increased spending came seven years ago \u003ca href=\"https://ca.water.usgs.gov/california-drought/california-drought-comparisons.html\">after California suffered one of its worst droughts\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/families-scour-burnt-ruins-for-missing-in-california-1507936103?mod=article_inline\">a series of devastating wildfires\u003c/a> in 2017 and 2018, many ignited by utility equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sixteen fires were caused by \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/safety-policy-division/reports/root-cause-analyses-of-the-2017-18-wildfires.pdf\">PG&E equipment\u003c/a> during a rash of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/wildfires/october-2017-wildfires\">October 2017\u003c/a> fires that decimated Napa, Sonoma and other Northern California counties. That December, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/12/4/thomas-fire/\">Thomas Fire\u003c/a>, sparked by Southern California Edison equipment, engulfed parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the devastation of 2017 was only a prelude to an even graver year. On Nov. 8, 2018, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2018/11/8/camp-fire/\">Camp Fire\u003c/a> leveled the town of Paradise, killing 85 people, making it the deadliest wildfire in state history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Camp Fire was caused by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.buttecounty.net/342/Camp-Fire\">failure of an old metal hook\u003c/a> attached to a PG&E transmission tower. An intense wind event pushed the fire at a rate of roughly 80 football fields per minute at its peak. The company in 2020 pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for its role in the disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same day as the destruction in Paradise, another fire ignited some 470 miles south. In the Simi Hills of Ventura County, Southern California, Edison \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/divisions/safety-and-enforcement-division/investigations-wildfires/sed-investigation-report---woolsey-fire---redacted.pdf\">wires in two separate locations\u003c/a> made contact with others, triggering “arc” flashes that rained hot metal fragments and sparks onto the dry brush below. These triggered two blazes, which soon merged to form the Woolsey Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Ana winds spread the conflagration across parched terrain, with swaths of the nationally protected Santa Monica Mountains reduced to ash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11953264\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11953264 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy.jpg\" alt=\"A burning structure with a firefighter in the foreground.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/110818-Paradise-Fire-AP-CM-01-copy-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A home burns as the Camp Fire rages through Paradise on Nov. 8, 2018. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/The Associated Press)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moss, the clean energy advocate, evacuated her home with her son that day. Her husband, clinging to hope, stayed until the blaze threatened to swallow him whole. Their neighborhood near Malibu, with its heavily wooded surroundings, was no match for the inferno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My husband stayed until the last minute when it just — it looked like it could cost him his life,” Moss said. “Everybody else left, and just about all of us lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three people died. Moss’ home was gone, reduced to a hollowed-out structure and charred rubble, along with about 100,000 acres of\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/management/2018-woolsey-fire.htm\"> parkland and wilderness\u003c/a>, more than any other fire in recorded history for that area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, downed PG&E lines ignited Sonoma County’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-fight-california-fires-firefighters-seek-to-hold-the-line-in-sonoma-11572464115\">Kincade Fire\u003c/a>. Then, two years later, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2021/7/13/dixie-fire/\">the Dixie Fire\u003c/a>, also caused by PG&E equipment, became the \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calfire-website/our-impact/fire-statistics/top-20-largest-ca-wildfires.pdf?rev=097f901c128347149e2614f2fca4f546&hash=27DDE83DFEF9A69E67C73765892A2B75\">second-largest wildfire\u003c/a> in California history, burning 963,000 acres north of Chico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2021 Dixie Fire, which claimed one life and destroyed 1,311 structures, was the last catastrophic wildfire in California confirmed to be caused by utility equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3 id=\"h-it-just-takes-the-wrong-ignition\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>‘It just takes the wrong ignition’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The number of fires triggered by the companies’ equipment fluctuates from year to year, driven by the huge variability in California’s weather. However, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/wildfires\">data from 2014 through 2023\u003c/a> indicate there were substantially fewer fires last year than in other recent years. SDG&E equipment caused 16 fires after its high of 32 fires in 2015, Southern California Edison had 90 fires, compared to a 2021 high of 173, and PG&E reported 374 fires after a high of 510 in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25355999/pges-2023-annual-report-on-compliance-revision-1-r1.pdf#page=6\">PG&E also reported\u003c/a> that fires in its highest-risk areas trended down every month of 2023 compared to the same months in previous years. But that progress reversed this year, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/pg-e-is-racing-to-stem-increasing-fires-ignited-by-its-power-lines-0228c556\">62 fires\u003c/a> reported by August in high-risk areas, compared to 65 in all of 2023. (PG&E would not provide 2024 fire data to CalMatters.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11705327\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11705327 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn.jpg\" alt=\"The Woolsey Fire burns along the ridgeline off Cornell Road near Paramount Ranch on the morning of Nov. 9, 2018 in Agoura Hills.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1274\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-1020x677.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-1200x796.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-1180x783.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-960x637.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-240x159.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-375x249.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/11/WoolseyBurn-520x345.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Woolsey Fire burns along the ridgeline off Cornell Road near Paramount Ranch on the morning of Nov. 9, 2018, in Agoura Hills. \u003ccite>(Matthew Simmons/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caroline Thomas Jacobs, inaugural director of the state Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, established in 2021 to oversee utility safety, said progress can be hard to measure. Nevertheless, she said she has seen a cultural shift at electric companies in recent years, with a more focused approach in high-risk areas and an environment that empowers workers to prioritize safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv id=\"datawrapper-vis-Va70l\" class=\"datawrapper-script-embed vis-height-fixed vis-d3-area\">\n\u003cp>“It just takes the wrong ignition … under the right conditions, to have a catastrophic fire,” Thomas Jacobs said. “But are we in a better place? The numbers seem to indicate we’re moving in the right direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E has installed more than 1,500 weather stations and 600 AI-enabled cameras to detect severe weather and ignitions, Singh said. Enhanced safety systems now cut power to lines within a tenth of a second. The utility has also cleared vegetation, ordered power shutoffs during high-risk times, insulated lines and buried some lines underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where do we see the greatest risk?” Singh said the company asks itself, and “What is the most cost-effective way to be able to reduce that risk for every dollar that’s spent?”\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Va70l/17/\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Southern California Edison said since its investments began in 2019, the risk of catastrophic wildfire in its system has dropped between 85% and 90%. The company plans to bury 600 miles of lines in high-risk areas but it is relying much more on less-expensive insulating technology, which has already been used on more than 6,000 miles of lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SDG&E began prioritizing wildfire prevention, including underground and insulated lines, a decade ahead of the other two utilities after its lines sparked three major fires in 2007. The company has avoided a catastrophic fire since 2007 despite operating in one of the nation’s most fire-prone regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We continue to double down and do and do more tomorrow than we did yesterday,” said Brian D’Agostino, the utility’s vice president of wildfire and climate science. “We don’t take a single day without a fire for granted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Wildfire spending — ‘an odd system’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Critics say the scramble to address the wildfire crisis has left the state vulnerable to overspending by utilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About two months before the Camp and Woolsey fires, outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018 signed a $1 billion plan to thin forests and clear out the tinderbox of California’s dead and dying trees. That measure came too late to prevent the devastation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, it opened the door to increased spending by utilities beyond limits set in the highly deliberative process known as their general rate cases, which determine what Californians pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and the Legislature in 2019 created a $21 billion wildfire fund paid for by Wall Street investors and California ratepayers to help PG&E exit bankruptcy and protect utilities from being financially threatened by the wildfires they cause. The utilities cannot access the state’s $21 billion fund unless the energy safety office approves their wildfire plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/H4pTN/16/\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One problem, critics say, is that the safety plans are approved by one government entity while the spending to carry them out is approved by another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We now have this very odd system,” said Lynch, who served on the utilities commission from 2000 through 2004. “The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety reviews the plans, puts out guidelines, but then the (commission) still has to ratify the plans so that the utilities can take money from their ratepayers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Wildfire safety goes underground\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On a temperate, clear morning in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Placerville in October, a PG&E construction crew donned yellow jackets and safety helmets and went about the work of burying power lines along a narrow, wooded road. Overhead lines snaked through thick trees in this area — prime fire risk territory. The workers buried the lines in a trench that had been dug using a heavy piece of equipment designed to cut hard concrete and soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once those power lines are buried and activated, their risk of fires is all but eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12016434\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12016434 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_07-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marking tape covers a layer of sand in the trench. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Burying lines in high-risk areas improves reliability amid rising wildfire risks and extreme weather, PG&E’s Singh said. Though it’s pricier up front, it eliminates the yearly expense of trimming trees and vegetation, which makes it a better, long-run value for customers, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Underground is a no-brainer when you look at it from that lens,” Singh said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the high cost and the time it takes to do the work have left some skeptical. The company has buried 800 miles of wires underground since 2021 and plans to bury more than 1,600 by the end of 2026. It aims to get the cost per mile down to $2.8 million by the end of 2026 from $3 million at the end of 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Campbell, assistant deputy director of energy for the public advocates office, a state entity that represents utility customers, said PG&E should consider other means of preventing wildfire, like insulated wires, otherwise known as “covered conductors.” This can be deployed more quickly and at a lower cost, he said and is effective when combined with operational techniques like fast trip settings and power safety shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In some areas, (burying power lines) really is the correct approach to minimize risk. But it’s also very slow and very expensive, and so there’s a need to address safety in as many miles as quickly as possible, to reduce overall risk,” Campbell said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utilities commission has taken a proof-of-concept approach: The commission scaled back PG&E’s plan to bury 2,000 miles through 2026 to 1,230. The commission approved installing covered conductors, or insulated power lines, over 778 miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynch is skeptical of utilities and their big projects because they can profit from them, and Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, says too much spending is going unchecked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sense of urgency following fires paved the way for the multi-billion surge in spending. The commission authorized PG&E, for instance, to spend $4.66 billion on wildfire costs from 2020 through 2022, but the company ultimately spent $11.7 billion and is seeking payment through utility bills, according to The Utility Reform Network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12016435\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12016435\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1536\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/101724_PGE-Underground-Cables_MG_CM_09-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PG&E employees and contractors stand next to a trench that was dug in Placer County so that electric cables can be buried to prevent wildfires. Burying lines costs PG&E ratepayers between $3 million and $4 million per mile. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Audits of nearly $2.5 billion in 2019 and 2020 wildfire spending found some costs from PG&E, Southern California Edison and SDG&E may already have been covered by previously approved rates, or more documentation was needed to confirm they had not been covered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utilities challenged many of the findings, saying they didn’t plan to claim some of the costs, and disputed the auditor’s conclusions as well as some of their calculations. In interviews with CalMatters, representatives for all three utilities said the process in place to oversee wildfire spending at the utilities commission was robust and thorough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geraghty, of SDG&E, said the process is transparent, with public comment periods and hearings. Regarding critics who say wildfire prevention should be cheaper and faster, “every one of them had that voice, had that say, had that transparency through this entire process,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some expenses, such as operating costs, have an immediate impact on how much people pay in their bills. But other costs, such as long-term investments in insulating or burying power lines, are stretched out over years, meaning they add to bills for decades to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, these capital costs are growing due to factors like depreciation and the returns utilities are allowed to generate. This creates a compounding effect, meaning wildfire-related capital costs will take up an increasing share of what California customers are charged in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Feeling the pinch in Oakland, the fear near Malibu\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The burden of the rising bills is hitting many Californians hard. Roshonda Wilson, of Oakland, couldn’t afford to pay her power bill even though she said she watches television only after sunset, refrains from running unnecessary appliances and is hyper-aware of every energy-consuming action in her household. At one point, PG&E turned her power off this year. “I couldn’t catch up,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, Moss — who has weathered not just the trauma of losing her home near Malibu but also the difficult process of rebuilding — says the expensive wildfire prevention work is critical to prevent more tragedies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though (burying power lines) is costly and time-consuming, the cost and time of not doing it is starting to seem more devastating to a broader swath of people,” Moss said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, the rate hikes have alarmed climate activists who fear rising power bills in California may trigger a backlash against the state’s effort to switch to renewable energy and influence other states, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state, we fear, will start to lose the political will to keep pushing on,” said Mohit Chhabra, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The problem with that is not that California will be a few years late — we can handle that. But the impact on all the other states who are looking at California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett and Miguel Gutierrez Jr. contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "pge-says-it-may-have-started-yet-another-major-northern-california-wildfire",
"title": "PG&E Says It May Have Started Yet Another Major Northern California Wildfire in June",
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"headTitle": "PG&E Says It May Have Started Yet Another Major Northern California Wildfire in June | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pge\">PG&E\u003c/a> equipment may have ignited a large wildfire in Colusa County that burned more than 19,000 acres at the start of the summer, the utility told state regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a new \u003ca href=\"https://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/wildfire_updates/2024/11/2024-11-25-EIR.pdf\">filing \u003c/a>with the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E said its system experienced an outage around 1:26 p.m. on June 17 near where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/6/17/sites-fire\">Sites Fire\u003c/a> started. Cal Fire said the blaze began around 19 minutes later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A worker sent to the scene of the electricity disruption on a distribution circuit near the community of Stonyford found part of a tree had fallen on what was then a de-energized power line, according to PG&E’s filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sites Fire would burn for more than a week before it was fully contained, turning into California’s ninth-largest wildfire this year and the largest for the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit, according to state fire officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its peak, close to 2,250 firefighters worked the blaze. It led to a series of evacuation orders and warnings, and it sent \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2024/aqadvisory_240618_2024_025-pdf.pdf?rev=993001201a5a4f338426dccacfaace50&sc_lang=en\">smoke \u003c/a>into parts of Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the fire burned a large amount of land, it did not injure anyone and did not destroy homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E said it released a preliminary report on the incident this week because it received a claim that the fire had caused more than $50,000 in damage to fencing in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire would not say whether it’s investigating PG&E’s equipment as the cause of the blaze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our investigation into the cause of the Sites Fire remains open, so we cannot comment on that report or the determination of the fire’s cause until our investigation has concluded,” Cal Fire spokesperson Jason Clay said in an email on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E has come under scrutiny for starting several large wildfires in California over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those incidents include \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11747485/cal-fires-official-finding-pge-equipment-touched-off-camp-fire\">Butte County’s 2018 Camp Fire\u003c/a>, the deadliest in state history, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11881837/why-it-took-pge-9-5-hours-to-get-to-the-scene-where-dixie-fire-started\">the Dixie Fire\u003c/a> in the northern Sierra Nevada, California’s largest single wildland blaze ever. Both led to criminal prosecutions against PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12015942 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/01/PowerPGEMissionDist-1020x666.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11824596/pge-pleads-guilty-to-84-deaths-in-wildfire-that-destroyed-paradise\">pleaded guilty\u003c/a> to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Camp Fire, and it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11910835/pge-reaches-55-million-deal-to-avoid-criminal-prosecution-in-counties-ravaged-by-recent-wildfires\">agreed to a civil settlement\u003c/a> of charges in the Dixie Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A representative for the Colusa County district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CPUC spokesperson said the agency’s role in this kind of incident is not to determine a fire’s cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When a utility reports an electric incident potentially associated with a wildfire, CPUC staff perform site visits and collect data to assess if the utility violated any CPUC or state rules and regulations,” the commission’s Terrie Prosper said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A PG&E representative reached for comment on the Sites Fire acknowledged the outage but gave no further details about the incident, other than to outline steps the utility has taken to reduce wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Company spokesperson Matt Nauman noted that the utility is working to place hundreds of miles of power lines underground and continues to turn off power during windy and dry weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although we have made real and significant progress in driving down wildfire risk, wildfires remain a serious threat to the safety of our state and our customers. We remain focused on working every day to end catastrophic wildfires,” Nauman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In a new filing with California regulators, PG&E noted an outage near where the Sites Fire started in June. A worker found part of a tree had fallen on a power line.",
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"title": "PG&E Says It May Have Started Yet Another Major Northern California Wildfire in June | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pge\">PG&E\u003c/a> equipment may have ignited a large wildfire in Colusa County that burned more than 19,000 acres at the start of the summer, the utility told state regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a new \u003ca href=\"https://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/wildfire_updates/2024/11/2024-11-25-EIR.pdf\">filing \u003c/a>with the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E said its system experienced an outage around 1:26 p.m. on June 17 near where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/6/17/sites-fire\">Sites Fire\u003c/a> started. Cal Fire said the blaze began around 19 minutes later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A worker sent to the scene of the electricity disruption on a distribution circuit near the community of Stonyford found part of a tree had fallen on what was then a de-energized power line, according to PG&E’s filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sites Fire would burn for more than a week before it was fully contained, turning into California’s ninth-largest wildfire this year and the largest for the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit, according to state fire officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its peak, close to 2,250 firefighters worked the blaze. It led to a series of evacuation orders and warnings, and it sent \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2024/aqadvisory_240618_2024_025-pdf.pdf?rev=993001201a5a4f338426dccacfaace50&sc_lang=en\">smoke \u003c/a>into parts of Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the fire burned a large amount of land, it did not injure anyone and did not destroy homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E said it released a preliminary report on the incident this week because it received a claim that the fire had caused more than $50,000 in damage to fencing in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire would not say whether it’s investigating PG&E’s equipment as the cause of the blaze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our investigation into the cause of the Sites Fire remains open, so we cannot comment on that report or the determination of the fire’s cause until our investigation has concluded,” Cal Fire spokesperson Jason Clay said in an email on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E has come under scrutiny for starting several large wildfires in California over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those incidents include \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11747485/cal-fires-official-finding-pge-equipment-touched-off-camp-fire\">Butte County’s 2018 Camp Fire\u003c/a>, the deadliest in state history, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11881837/why-it-took-pge-9-5-hours-to-get-to-the-scene-where-dixie-fire-started\">the Dixie Fire\u003c/a> in the northern Sierra Nevada, California’s largest single wildland blaze ever. Both led to criminal prosecutions against PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11824596/pge-pleads-guilty-to-84-deaths-in-wildfire-that-destroyed-paradise\">pleaded guilty\u003c/a> to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Camp Fire, and it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11910835/pge-reaches-55-million-deal-to-avoid-criminal-prosecution-in-counties-ravaged-by-recent-wildfires\">agreed to a civil settlement\u003c/a> of charges in the Dixie Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A representative for the Colusa County district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CPUC spokesperson said the agency’s role in this kind of incident is not to determine a fire’s cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When a utility reports an electric incident potentially associated with a wildfire, CPUC staff perform site visits and collect data to assess if the utility violated any CPUC or state rules and regulations,” the commission’s Terrie Prosper said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A PG&E representative reached for comment on the Sites Fire acknowledged the outage but gave no further details about the incident, other than to outline steps the utility has taken to reduce wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Company spokesperson Matt Nauman noted that the utility is working to place hundreds of miles of power lines underground and continues to turn off power during windy and dry weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although we have made real and significant progress in driving down wildfire risk, wildfires remain a serious threat to the safety of our state and our customers. We remain focused on working every day to end catastrophic wildfires,” Nauman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California has more than 33 million acres of forest land, which makes up about a third of the state’s total area, plus grasslands, chaparral and other wild lands. For decades we’ve done everything to prevent fires in wild spaces and put them out as quickly as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s getting harder and harder as recent wildfire seasons have brought massive, super destructive fires. [baycuriousbug] But part of the reason for that is because of all the fire suppression that has been done. Forests need to burn sometimes, and fairly often, in order to clear out the fuels that lead to the gigantic blazes that destroy too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So how much \u003cem>should \u003c/em>be burning every year? In this episode of Bay Curious we speak to KQED Science reporter \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/dventon\">Danielle Venton\u003c/a>, who has covered California wildfires extensively, to find out the answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8933954289\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Hey everyone – Olivia Allen-Price here. I don’t know about you, but October is the time of year where I feel like we reach peak crispy. The hills in the Bay Area are completely golden … and so many plants have become spiky and brittle. The natural world is clearly ready for the first big rain of the season – and quite frankly, so am I.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But until it comes, we live under threat of wildfire. That’s been on the mind of one of our listeners …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot\u003c/strong>: I’m Pete Smoot. I live in South San Jose. I’ve been living here for many decades at this point … and I love hiking around in our parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> As he hikes around, he thinks a lot about wildfire – and how it’s both vital to the health of our ecosystems … but how it can also have devastating consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot:\u003c/strong> We keep hearing that we have record numbers of acres of forest burning. And I keep wondering, well, forest people say that the forest should burn all the time just for forest health. What should a normal forest fire year look like? How many acres should be burning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I’ve wondered this too. Today on the show we’ll take a long view at what wildfire looked like in California before colonization – and try to parse out what “normal” should look like today. Plus, we’ll answer this second question from Pete…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot:\u003c/strong> I live near Quicksilver Park and it’s never had a wildfire in there in all the time I’ve been living here. And I’m kind of wondering like how due are we for a fire?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> That’s all just ahead on Bay Curious, the show that answers listener questions about the San Francisco Bay Area. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Sponsor Message]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Our question asker Pete Smoot has a lot of great questions about wildfires – ones that many of you might have considered too, especially if you live near a fire prone area. Or open land that just looks like it’s ready to burn. Danielle Venton is a climate reporter at KQED, and has been covering wildfires for nine years. Welcome, Danielle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Happy to be here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> So, Pete’s got a few questions, but let’s start with this one:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot:\u003c/strong> What should a normal forest fire year look like? How many acres should be burning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> I love this question because it recognizes that fire is this natural, necessary component of the California landscape. We are amid fire adapted ecosystems! And also because this is a really key question for California to come to grips with. But it’s kind of hard and complicated to answer because even if we reconstruct the past, we live in a different reality now. And so the past can’t be a perfect guide of the future but it can be a good place to start considering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Let’s look at California … pre-settlement. What was the scene like then?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> There was a lot of fire. Both because native people intentionally set fires and because lightning generated fires didn’t get put out. Early accounts of people from European descent visiting the area mention a constant light haze in the sky from the wildfire smoke. So crystal clear skies– not normal. And because there was frequent fire, forests had this open, park-like feeling. You could ride through on horseback, stretch your arms out and not get tangled in anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Wow, it’s hard to imagine that. Haha. Do we know how many acres would have burned?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah. We have an estimate from fire researchers at Berkeley whose work shows an average of around four and a half million acres burned each year. Certainly some years there would be a lot more, some years a lot less. But that number really points to how important fire was in California\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, should that be our goal? Well, I asked Scott Stephens, one of the principal researchers behind this work if that’s a number we should strive for and he said definitely not. He said: “I would never use that number as a goal today, there’s been too much land use change in the state. Including that the whole Central Valley now in agriculture, other valleys used for housing, agriculture, and so on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, we shouldn’t strive for 4 million acres. This year we’re closing in on a million acres. Last 5-year-average is around 370 thousand acres a year, so a whole lot less. This number can be all over the place. In 2020 it was over 4 million, so that’s the closest in recent historic long, long-term average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I mean I remember the 2020 fire season and it felt … apocalyptic, really. I mean. That was the year we had the notorious “orange skies day,” with ash raining down all over the region. So it’s wild to think of that as a normal year, if you take the long view into our past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah well, California is so different now that I don’t think it’s fair to consider that a normal year, even if the acreage approached the historic average. Those fires were not burning like they would have 200 years ago. They were burning hot, they were damaging, they were killing mature trees. They were sterilizing soil. We shouldn’t hold up 2020 as something to aspire to, by any means. How the land burns, the effects of the fire, are crucially important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Ok, but is there a sense of … land should burn every 20 years, every 50 years or 100 years, or anything like that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it depends on the dominant vegetation is where you are. Scientists have made incredibly detailed estimates of average fire return intervals for certain areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oak woodland, maybe one of my favorite ecosystems, the sort of average fire return interval should be around every 12 years. So pretty frequent. Redwood forests, a little bit more, it’s about 23. Lodgepole pine – 37. Dry mixed conifer – 11. Interestingly, chaparral should only get fire about once every 100 years. We’re seeing chaparral burn way too frequently. So it’s all in what’s natural for the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that has me thinking about the redwood forests near me, when was the last time they burned. It definitely wasn’t within the last 23 years. So how far we’ve gotten from some of these regimes, basically how often and intensely an area burns regularly, it’s pretty dramatic really.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> OK, so circling back to Pete’s question about how many acres should burn in California. It sounds like the answer is obviously not 4 million acres, like once burned pre-colonization, because we’ve converted a lot of how we use land. It’s farmland, or we’ve developed it in other ways. But Is there a number of acres that’s kind of like … what should be our goal given how land is used today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Well, I asked Scott Stephens, one of the researchers who found the 4 million acre number. And he pointed out that the state of Florida burns over a 1 million acres a year with prescribed fire. Mostly that’s in forests on private land by private people… and that the state’s doing this for decades. Maybe, he suggested, maybe we could use 1 million acres of healthy burning as a reasonable goal for CA. This year, we’ve done only a fraction of that in prescribed fire. Around 150,000 acres, which is not nothing, but there’s a long way to go still.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Wow! And I’m imagining that since California is about two and a half times the size of Florida, is 1 million acres even like pretty conservative– a low goal?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> That’s true, but in Florida the laws and culture are oriented towards this good fire… this prescribed fire. But let’s be clear that even in saying ‘1 million is a nice goal’…we’re talking about a sort of fantasy scenario, where we have healthy forests that have caught up with fire that’s been deprived to them. And again, the effects that fire is having is more important than trying to reach certain numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Can you take us through one of these prescribed fires and how they work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah! I’ve observed a couple and they are really fun. They’re even joyful. It feels very different from being out at a wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s always a burn boss in charge and sometimes they’re a bit stressed because if anything goes wrong they’re responsible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So here’s how this works: There’s a lot of planning ahead of time, studies, permits, weather forecasts, smoke mitigation plans – often you want to do a fire at a time when the weather is calm, but you’re expecting some wind in the next day or two to carry the smoke away from the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then the day of the fire a line is built. Which is basically a box that the fire is supposed to be in, and supposed to stay in. A line is cleared of anything that can burn, like a literal line on the ground, so it’s scraped down to mineral soil. And then sometimes wetted with a water hose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are different teams. There’s the firing team and they have drip torches. They actually put fire on the ground and I hear that’s the most fun. They kind of look like painters brushing along the ground. They use different patterns depending on what they want to do. The most experienced know to use no more than they need. Newbies can be very enthusiastic, and have a tendency to overdo it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Sounds of crackling fire and footsteps in the forest]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> I went to a fire, it was a training fire, along the Klamath river in the town of Orleans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scot Steinbring:\u003c/strong> So our objective is, is one: we’re learning and working together. Number two is that we want to burn something. This is 12 acres. It’s divided into three sections…(fades under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> So there’s the firing team, and then there’s this other team, the holding team, and they’re at the line making sure the fire doesn’t cross over, ready to stamp it out if it does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And throughout all of this the burn boss is watching everything, she or he is noting how long the flame lengths are, how far embers are traveling, what sound the fire is making. And they’re doing any adjustments on the fly as they need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Now our listener, Pete Smoot – who I spoke to in late July – he mentioned that he hikes at Quicksilver Park in Santa Clara County, and that it hasn’t burned in his recent memory. And he’s lived in his house for 30 years. nearby\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Right and since we spoke, there were actually two fires. One was in the park and one was close to it. So, I wanted to know about that fire that was in the park, and what the fire history of the park is, so I called up Captain Brian Christensen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> I’m Brian Christensen with the Santa Clara County Parks and Rec department. I’m the captain for one of our regions and a fire liaison for our agency as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> I asked him how often fire was seen in the area pre-western settlement. And I was surprised about how much detail they know about this…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> There’s a few historical documents that are out there when it comes to Santa Clara County. And there’s a 5 to 7 regime, sometimes there’s a 7 to 10, and then a 10 to 15 that usually occurs, depending on where it’s at.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> So basically the county is supposed to burn somewhere every 5 to 15 years. A whole lot more frequently than it really has.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that really surprises me. Way more than they’ve seen. You know Pete also asked if Quicksilver Park was “due” for a fire — so sounds like the answer is yes, but with the recent fires… maybe it got some?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> It did get some. You could say it was due for a fire in strictly an ecological sense. But fire is not welcome in this land. The fires pop up from time to time. Christensen said he can remember two from this year, three from last year…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> But those fires are being suppressed, right? This park is not getting burned every 5 to 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> No, not at all. And there isn’t really a fire regime that’s in there. And we do partner with our partnering agencies like Cal Fire, City of San Jose and County Fire. Just for a few of them to put those fires out in those areas, just like we had a recent one that started within the park, and we kept it within the park, where it did not get outside of those areas and threaten any type of subdivisions or other structures in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> He says right there, there is no fire regime in the park now. When I asked him about the use of prescribed fire he said it could be something they might consider in the future, but there are no current plans for it. So it’s been a long time since the full area burned. Christensen said it probably hadn’t burned since the 1800s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The recent fire that happened in the park was really small. So the Hicks Fire burned about 4 acres in a canyon. It was suppressed quickly. But Christiansen says it behaved mildly. It cleaned up some dead trees, and left the big ones alive. It was very helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s definitely good for that land. It burns that small stuff, that understory. And it takes care of that ladder fuels. Right. You have to have that nexus for fires to go big.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Ladder fuels are the brush, and twigs and branches that act like mid-size kindling and allow a fire on the ground to climb up into the canopy. Getting up into the canopy is what leads to crown fires, and the types we want to avoid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> And the grasses will be back to it next year, along with their flowers and forbs. And it’ll be a beautiful wildflower display underneath those areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> So! Our listener Peet Smoot might be in for a real treat next spring if his hiking brings him near this area, which is the southeast side of the Guadalupe Reservoir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Well in all this, at least there’s some wildflowers to look forward to. Danielle – KQED science reporter – It is always a pleasure. Thanks so much for stopping by!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Thank you Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> One note, Danielle and I had this conversation in mid-August and since then more than 1 million acres have burned by wildfire in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Big thanks to Pete Smoot for asking this week’s question. If there’s something you’re been wondering about the San Francisco Bay Area – head online to BayCurious.org and ask!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot:\u003c/strong> Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>This episode was produced by Annie Fruit, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, Ana De Almeida Amaral and me, Olivia Allen-Price. We get additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price and I hope you have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California has more than 33 million acres of forest land, which makes up about a third of the state’s total area, plus grasslands, chaparral and other wild lands. For decades we’ve done everything to prevent fires in wild spaces and put them out as quickly as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s getting harder and harder as recent wildfire seasons have brought massive, super destructive fires. \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp> But part of the reason for that is because of all the fire suppression that has been done. Forests need to burn sometimes, and fairly often, in order to clear out the fuels that lead to the gigantic blazes that destroy too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So how much \u003cem>should \u003c/em>be burning every year? In this episode of Bay Curious we speak to KQED Science reporter \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/dventon\">Danielle Venton\u003c/a>, who has covered California wildfires extensively, to find out the answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8933954289\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Hey everyone – Olivia Allen-Price here. I don’t know about you, but October is the time of year where I feel like we reach peak crispy. The hills in the Bay Area are completely golden … and so many plants have become spiky and brittle. The natural world is clearly ready for the first big rain of the season – and quite frankly, so am I.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But until it comes, we live under threat of wildfire. That’s been on the mind of one of our listeners …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot\u003c/strong>: I’m Pete Smoot. I live in South San Jose. I’ve been living here for many decades at this point … and I love hiking around in our parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> As he hikes around, he thinks a lot about wildfire – and how it’s both vital to the health of our ecosystems … but how it can also have devastating consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot:\u003c/strong> We keep hearing that we have record numbers of acres of forest burning. And I keep wondering, well, forest people say that the forest should burn all the time just for forest health. What should a normal forest fire year look like? How many acres should be burning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I’ve wondered this too. Today on the show we’ll take a long view at what wildfire looked like in California before colonization – and try to parse out what “normal” should look like today. Plus, we’ll answer this second question from Pete…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot:\u003c/strong> I live near Quicksilver Park and it’s never had a wildfire in there in all the time I’ve been living here. And I’m kind of wondering like how due are we for a fire?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> That’s all just ahead on Bay Curious, the show that answers listener questions about the San Francisco Bay Area. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Sponsor Message]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Our question asker Pete Smoot has a lot of great questions about wildfires – ones that many of you might have considered too, especially if you live near a fire prone area. Or open land that just looks like it’s ready to burn. Danielle Venton is a climate reporter at KQED, and has been covering wildfires for nine years. Welcome, Danielle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Happy to be here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> So, Pete’s got a few questions, but let’s start with this one:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot:\u003c/strong> What should a normal forest fire year look like? How many acres should be burning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> I love this question because it recognizes that fire is this natural, necessary component of the California landscape. We are amid fire adapted ecosystems! And also because this is a really key question for California to come to grips with. But it’s kind of hard and complicated to answer because even if we reconstruct the past, we live in a different reality now. And so the past can’t be a perfect guide of the future but it can be a good place to start considering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Let’s look at California … pre-settlement. What was the scene like then?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> There was a lot of fire. Both because native people intentionally set fires and because lightning generated fires didn’t get put out. Early accounts of people from European descent visiting the area mention a constant light haze in the sky from the wildfire smoke. So crystal clear skies– not normal. And because there was frequent fire, forests had this open, park-like feeling. You could ride through on horseback, stretch your arms out and not get tangled in anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Wow, it’s hard to imagine that. Haha. Do we know how many acres would have burned?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah. We have an estimate from fire researchers at Berkeley whose work shows an average of around four and a half million acres burned each year. Certainly some years there would be a lot more, some years a lot less. But that number really points to how important fire was in California\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, should that be our goal? Well, I asked Scott Stephens, one of the principal researchers behind this work if that’s a number we should strive for and he said definitely not. He said: “I would never use that number as a goal today, there’s been too much land use change in the state. Including that the whole Central Valley now in agriculture, other valleys used for housing, agriculture, and so on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, we shouldn’t strive for 4 million acres. This year we’re closing in on a million acres. Last 5-year-average is around 370 thousand acres a year, so a whole lot less. This number can be all over the place. In 2020 it was over 4 million, so that’s the closest in recent historic long, long-term average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I mean I remember the 2020 fire season and it felt … apocalyptic, really. I mean. That was the year we had the notorious “orange skies day,” with ash raining down all over the region. So it’s wild to think of that as a normal year, if you take the long view into our past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah well, California is so different now that I don’t think it’s fair to consider that a normal year, even if the acreage approached the historic average. Those fires were not burning like they would have 200 years ago. They were burning hot, they were damaging, they were killing mature trees. They were sterilizing soil. We shouldn’t hold up 2020 as something to aspire to, by any means. How the land burns, the effects of the fire, are crucially important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Ok, but is there a sense of … land should burn every 20 years, every 50 years or 100 years, or anything like that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it depends on the dominant vegetation is where you are. Scientists have made incredibly detailed estimates of average fire return intervals for certain areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oak woodland, maybe one of my favorite ecosystems, the sort of average fire return interval should be around every 12 years. So pretty frequent. Redwood forests, a little bit more, it’s about 23. Lodgepole pine – 37. Dry mixed conifer – 11. Interestingly, chaparral should only get fire about once every 100 years. We’re seeing chaparral burn way too frequently. So it’s all in what’s natural for the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that has me thinking about the redwood forests near me, when was the last time they burned. It definitely wasn’t within the last 23 years. So how far we’ve gotten from some of these regimes, basically how often and intensely an area burns regularly, it’s pretty dramatic really.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> OK, so circling back to Pete’s question about how many acres should burn in California. It sounds like the answer is obviously not 4 million acres, like once burned pre-colonization, because we’ve converted a lot of how we use land. It’s farmland, or we’ve developed it in other ways. But Is there a number of acres that’s kind of like … what should be our goal given how land is used today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Well, I asked Scott Stephens, one of the researchers who found the 4 million acre number. And he pointed out that the state of Florida burns over a 1 million acres a year with prescribed fire. Mostly that’s in forests on private land by private people… and that the state’s doing this for decades. Maybe, he suggested, maybe we could use 1 million acres of healthy burning as a reasonable goal for CA. This year, we’ve done only a fraction of that in prescribed fire. Around 150,000 acres, which is not nothing, but there’s a long way to go still.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Wow! And I’m imagining that since California is about two and a half times the size of Florida, is 1 million acres even like pretty conservative– a low goal?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> That’s true, but in Florida the laws and culture are oriented towards this good fire… this prescribed fire. But let’s be clear that even in saying ‘1 million is a nice goal’…we’re talking about a sort of fantasy scenario, where we have healthy forests that have caught up with fire that’s been deprived to them. And again, the effects that fire is having is more important than trying to reach certain numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Can you take us through one of these prescribed fires and how they work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Yeah! I’ve observed a couple and they are really fun. They’re even joyful. It feels very different from being out at a wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s always a burn boss in charge and sometimes they’re a bit stressed because if anything goes wrong they’re responsible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So here’s how this works: There’s a lot of planning ahead of time, studies, permits, weather forecasts, smoke mitigation plans – often you want to do a fire at a time when the weather is calm, but you’re expecting some wind in the next day or two to carry the smoke away from the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then the day of the fire a line is built. Which is basically a box that the fire is supposed to be in, and supposed to stay in. A line is cleared of anything that can burn, like a literal line on the ground, so it’s scraped down to mineral soil. And then sometimes wetted with a water hose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are different teams. There’s the firing team and they have drip torches. They actually put fire on the ground and I hear that’s the most fun. They kind of look like painters brushing along the ground. They use different patterns depending on what they want to do. The most experienced know to use no more than they need. Newbies can be very enthusiastic, and have a tendency to overdo it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Sounds of crackling fire and footsteps in the forest]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> I went to a fire, it was a training fire, along the Klamath river in the town of Orleans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scot Steinbring:\u003c/strong> So our objective is, is one: we’re learning and working together. Number two is that we want to burn something. This is 12 acres. It’s divided into three sections…(fades under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> So there’s the firing team, and then there’s this other team, the holding team, and they’re at the line making sure the fire doesn’t cross over, ready to stamp it out if it does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And throughout all of this the burn boss is watching everything, she or he is noting how long the flame lengths are, how far embers are traveling, what sound the fire is making. And they’re doing any adjustments on the fly as they need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Now our listener, Pete Smoot – who I spoke to in late July – he mentioned that he hikes at Quicksilver Park in Santa Clara County, and that it hasn’t burned in his recent memory. And he’s lived in his house for 30 years. nearby\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Right and since we spoke, there were actually two fires. One was in the park and one was close to it. So, I wanted to know about that fire that was in the park, and what the fire history of the park is, so I called up Captain Brian Christensen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> I’m Brian Christensen with the Santa Clara County Parks and Rec department. I’m the captain for one of our regions and a fire liaison for our agency as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> I asked him how often fire was seen in the area pre-western settlement. And I was surprised about how much detail they know about this…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> There’s a few historical documents that are out there when it comes to Santa Clara County. And there’s a 5 to 7 regime, sometimes there’s a 7 to 10, and then a 10 to 15 that usually occurs, depending on where it’s at.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> So basically the county is supposed to burn somewhere every 5 to 15 years. A whole lot more frequently than it really has.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that really surprises me. Way more than they’ve seen. You know Pete also asked if Quicksilver Park was “due” for a fire — so sounds like the answer is yes, but with the recent fires… maybe it got some?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> It did get some. You could say it was due for a fire in strictly an ecological sense. But fire is not welcome in this land. The fires pop up from time to time. Christensen said he can remember two from this year, three from last year…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> But those fires are being suppressed, right? This park is not getting burned every 5 to 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> No, not at all. And there isn’t really a fire regime that’s in there. And we do partner with our partnering agencies like Cal Fire, City of San Jose and County Fire. Just for a few of them to put those fires out in those areas, just like we had a recent one that started within the park, and we kept it within the park, where it did not get outside of those areas and threaten any type of subdivisions or other structures in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> He says right there, there is no fire regime in the park now. When I asked him about the use of prescribed fire he said it could be something they might consider in the future, but there are no current plans for it. So it’s been a long time since the full area burned. Christensen said it probably hadn’t burned since the 1800s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The recent fire that happened in the park was really small. So the Hicks Fire burned about 4 acres in a canyon. It was suppressed quickly. But Christiansen says it behaved mildly. It cleaned up some dead trees, and left the big ones alive. It was very helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s definitely good for that land. It burns that small stuff, that understory. And it takes care of that ladder fuels. Right. You have to have that nexus for fires to go big.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Ladder fuels are the brush, and twigs and branches that act like mid-size kindling and allow a fire on the ground to climb up into the canopy. Getting up into the canopy is what leads to crown fires, and the types we want to avoid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Christensen:\u003c/strong> And the grasses will be back to it next year, along with their flowers and forbs. And it’ll be a beautiful wildflower display underneath those areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> So! Our listener Peet Smoot might be in for a real treat next spring if his hiking brings him near this area, which is the southeast side of the Guadalupe Reservoir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Well in all this, at least there’s some wildflowers to look forward to. Danielle – KQED science reporter – It is always a pleasure. Thanks so much for stopping by!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton:\u003c/strong> Thank you Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> One note, Danielle and I had this conversation in mid-August and since then more than 1 million acres have burned by wildfire in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Big thanks to Pete Smoot for asking this week’s question. If there’s something you’re been wondering about the San Francisco Bay Area – head online to BayCurious.org and ask!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pete Smoot:\u003c/strong> Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>This episode was produced by Annie Fruit, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, Ana De Almeida Amaral and me, Olivia Allen-Price. We get additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price and I hope you have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 8 a.m. Sunday: \u003c/strong>The Keller Fire that erupted Friday afternoon in the Oakland Hills burning two homes and up to 15 acres is now 50% contained, according to fire officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press conference early Saturday afternoon, Oakland Fire Chief Damon Covington said up to 200 firefighters worked overnight on the fire. On Saturday several crews from other fire departments were helping Oakland firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re hopeful. The firefight is still going, and while it’s contained, it’s not extinguished,” said Covington, who emphasized the strong winds were still a concern. “We have a lot of work to do. I see us being out here definitely through tonight and until tomorrow, minimum, making sure we have the fire fully extinguished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Covington said that evacuation orders were still in place for many residents due to the strong gusts and the danger of flames rekindling. Eucalyptus trees, notorious for their flammability, were especially dangerous near the scene of the fire, in the Caballo Hills near the I-580.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our job right now is to get the hot spots extinguished so we don’t have to worry as much about the eucalyptus,” Covington said. “I know it’s a very trying time for everyone living in that community but we’ll get them back into their homes as soon as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service meanwhile says conditions should start to ease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/1847572828243316950\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agency meteorologist Rick Canepa said “Everything’s on track, we’re expecting the Red Flag Warning until 5 p.m. today then plan to let it expire. It’s mostly in the hills and mountaintops where there’s still some wind gusts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E \u003ca href=\"https://www.pgecurrents.com/articles/4063-psps-update-week-october-14-2024\">wrote in a statement on Saturday evening\u003c/a> that approximately 1,300 customers are still without power — with most of the those people located in the Napa County area. The estimated time of restoration for all customers is Sunday at noon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utility has issued all-clears for high winds and is assessing damages, anticipating that power will be restored to all affected customers by Sunday noon. Five Bay Area counties are impacted by the outages, and PG&E says it will keep its \u003ca href=\"https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/ways-we-can-help/?WT.mc_id=Vanity_crc\">Community Resource Centers\u003c/a> open until all outages have been restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original story, 3:25 p.m. Friday:\u003c/strong> Firefighters have stopped forward progress on a five-alarm \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/wildfires\">fire\u003c/a> that began Friday afternoon off Interstate 580 in the Oakland hills and spread into nearby homes amid strong, dry winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire has burned thirteen acres and damaged less than 10 structures, but no injuries have been reported, according to Oakland Fire Chief Damon Covington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents were \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/OaklandFireCA/status/1847384515842572752\">told to evacuate\u003c/a> from their homes on Campus Drive and Crystal Ridge Court in the Caballo Hills neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was more of an evacuation caution, because of the eucalyptus grove, because of the wind blowing, because of the red flag day, the fire was fast moving. And before we could get in front of it, we had to make evacuations,” Covington said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cars jammed up on I-580 near Keller Avenue, with a huge plume of thick, dark brown smoke visible billowing from around the neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12010273\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12010273 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland Fire Chief Damon Covington speaks with evacuees from the Keller Fire in Oakland on Oct. 18, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Westbound traffic on I-580 was closed at Keller Avenue but is now open again, according to the California Highway Patrol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Airplanes and helicopters buzzed low over eucalyptus and other trees as they dropped water and retardant on the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Merritt College has closed its campus and canceled in-person classes until further notice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video posted online by the department showed firefighters dousing a smoldering home at Mountain Boulevard and Maynard Avenue as smoke rises from the hillside behind it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/OaklandFireCA/status/1847526267454968287\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 firefighters joined from throughout the region, including Marin, Berkeley and San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one of numerous fires to touch off this afternoon amid dry and windy conditions that have spurred red flag warnings across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firefighters are also battling the Hay Fire in Solano County, a grass fire that quickly spread to at least 890 acres, according to Cal Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12010271\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12010271 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fire crews respond to the Keller Fire in Oakland on Oct. 18, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With windy conditions expected to last through the night, \u003ca href=\"https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/news/fire-weather-October-18-19-2024\">the city of Berkeley is recommending\u003c/a> that some residents of the hills stay on heightened alert and consider leaving, especially if they may have trouble evacuating quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1994844/pge-cuts-power-to-15000-customers-as-dry-winds-whip-across-california\">shut off power to thousands of customers\u003c/a> to avoid having downed trees or limbs fall on power lines and ignite a fire that would spread rapidly in the windy conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cause of Friday’s fires was not immediately clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Riley Cooke, Christopher Alam, Attila Pelit and Ted Goldberg contributed to this developing story, which will be updated. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 8 a.m. Sunday: \u003c/strong>The Keller Fire that erupted Friday afternoon in the Oakland Hills burning two homes and up to 15 acres is now 50% contained, according to fire officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press conference early Saturday afternoon, Oakland Fire Chief Damon Covington said up to 200 firefighters worked overnight on the fire. On Saturday several crews from other fire departments were helping Oakland firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re hopeful. The firefight is still going, and while it’s contained, it’s not extinguished,” said Covington, who emphasized the strong winds were still a concern. “We have a lot of work to do. I see us being out here definitely through tonight and until tomorrow, minimum, making sure we have the fire fully extinguished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Covington said that evacuation orders were still in place for many residents due to the strong gusts and the danger of flames rekindling. Eucalyptus trees, notorious for their flammability, were especially dangerous near the scene of the fire, in the Caballo Hills near the I-580.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our job right now is to get the hot spots extinguished so we don’t have to worry as much about the eucalyptus,” Covington said. “I know it’s a very trying time for everyone living in that community but we’ll get them back into their homes as soon as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service meanwhile says conditions should start to ease.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Agency meteorologist Rick Canepa said “Everything’s on track, we’re expecting the Red Flag Warning until 5 p.m. today then plan to let it expire. It’s mostly in the hills and mountaintops where there’s still some wind gusts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E \u003ca href=\"https://www.pgecurrents.com/articles/4063-psps-update-week-october-14-2024\">wrote in a statement on Saturday evening\u003c/a> that approximately 1,300 customers are still without power — with most of the those people located in the Napa County area. The estimated time of restoration for all customers is Sunday at noon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utility has issued all-clears for high winds and is assessing damages, anticipating that power will be restored to all affected customers by Sunday noon. Five Bay Area counties are impacted by the outages, and PG&E says it will keep its \u003ca href=\"https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/ways-we-can-help/?WT.mc_id=Vanity_crc\">Community Resource Centers\u003c/a> open until all outages have been restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original story, 3:25 p.m. Friday:\u003c/strong> Firefighters have stopped forward progress on a five-alarm \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/wildfires\">fire\u003c/a> that began Friday afternoon off Interstate 580 in the Oakland hills and spread into nearby homes amid strong, dry winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire has burned thirteen acres and damaged less than 10 structures, but no injuries have been reported, according to Oakland Fire Chief Damon Covington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents were \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/OaklandFireCA/status/1847384515842572752\">told to evacuate\u003c/a> from their homes on Campus Drive and Crystal Ridge Court in the Caballo Hills neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was more of an evacuation caution, because of the eucalyptus grove, because of the wind blowing, because of the red flag day, the fire was fast moving. And before we could get in front of it, we had to make evacuations,” Covington said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cars jammed up on I-580 near Keller Avenue, with a huge plume of thick, dark brown smoke visible billowing from around the neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12010273\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12010273 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-04-KQED-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland Fire Chief Damon Covington speaks with evacuees from the Keller Fire in Oakland on Oct. 18, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Westbound traffic on I-580 was closed at Keller Avenue but is now open again, according to the California Highway Patrol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Airplanes and helicopters buzzed low over eucalyptus and other trees as they dropped water and retardant on the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Merritt College has closed its campus and canceled in-person classes until further notice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video posted online by the department showed firefighters dousing a smoldering home at Mountain Boulevard and Maynard Avenue as smoke rises from the hillside behind it.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>More than 100 firefighters joined from throughout the region, including Marin, Berkeley and San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one of numerous fires to touch off this afternoon amid dry and windy conditions that have spurred red flag warnings across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firefighters are also battling the Hay Fire in Solano County, a grass fire that quickly spread to at least 890 acres, according to Cal Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12010271\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12010271 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241018-KELLER-FIRE-MD-08-KQED-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fire crews respond to the Keller Fire in Oakland on Oct. 18, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With windy conditions expected to last through the night, \u003ca href=\"https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/news/fire-weather-October-18-19-2024\">the city of Berkeley is recommending\u003c/a> that some residents of the hills stay on heightened alert and consider leaving, especially if they may have trouble evacuating quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1994844/pge-cuts-power-to-15000-customers-as-dry-winds-whip-across-california\">shut off power to thousands of customers\u003c/a> to avoid having downed trees or limbs fall on power lines and ignite a fire that would spread rapidly in the windy conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cause of Friday’s fires was not immediately clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Riley Cooke, Christopher Alam, Attila Pelit and Ted Goldberg contributed to this developing story, which will be updated. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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