![]() PG&E also filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 after that blaze and others were blamed on its aging equipment. The utility pleaded guilty in 2019 to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for a 2018 blaze ignited by its long-neglected electrical grid that nearly destroyed the town of Paradise and became the deadliest U.S. It was one in a slew of legal actions against the nation’s largest utility, which has an estimated 16 million customers in central and Northern California. The utility said the tree was subsequently cleared to stay. Shasta and Tehama counties have sued the utility alleging negligence, saying PG&E had failed to remove the tree even though it had been marked for removal two years earlier. The company could be heavily fined if convicted. ![]() Investigators blamed a pine tree that fell onto a PG&E distribution line. Last September, PG&E was charged with involuntary manslaughter and other crimes because its equipment sparked the Zogg Fire in September 2020 that killed four people and burned about 200 homes west of Redding. ![]() PG&E equipment has been blamed for several of California’s deadliest wildfires in recent years at the same time as drought and heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires fiercer and harder to fight in the American West. In the shorter term, the utility has taken to pre-emptively shutting off power to thousands - and in one case, millions - of customers during periods of hot, dry weather coupled with high winds that can knock down trees or hurl branches into power lines.
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