Utility Giant Fined $45m for California’s Second Largest Wildfire

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United States: Utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric will pay $45 million US dollars in penalties for its involvement in the Dixie Fire, the second-largest wildfire in California’s history, according to state regulators.

On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a settlement agreement between the commission’s Safety and Enforcement Division and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the state’s largest utility.

Under the settlement agreement, PG&E will allocate 40 million dollars in shareholder funding to make hard copy records into an electronic system, improving “the timeliness of inspections and preventive maintenance,” according to CPUC’s news release.

The company will also pay 2.5 million dollars in fines to the California General Fund and 2.5 million dollars to tribal communities impacted by the fires, according to the news release.

The 2021 Dixie Fire started on July 13, 2021, and was ignited after a Douglas fir tree fell and struck the equipment owned and operated by PG&E.

After burning for over 100 days, the wildfire scorched nearly 1 million acres across five counties in Northern California before reaching full containment on October 25, 2021. It destroyed more than 1,300 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the state’s firefighting agency.

The utility company must also submit an implementation plan for the new record-keeping project and annual reports for ongoing oversight regarding progress.