Cal Fire Hits PG&E With $90 Million Bill for Huge Blaze in Sierra Foothills

Updated 5:35 p.m. Thursday

Cal Fire is hitting PG&E with a bill for $90 million after investigators concluded the utility is responsible for last September's devastating Butte Fire, which burned more than 500 homes and killed two people as it roared through the forests of Calaveras and Amador counties.

The direct cause of the fire, investigators found, was incomplete maintenance of a cluster of pines adjacent to the utility's power lines.

Cal Fire's 30-page investigation report (embedded below) says that PG&E and two tree-removal contractors were responsible for the blaze, sparked when the top of a spindly 44-foot gray pine made contact with a power line.

Cal Fire's announcement was followed immediately by a statement from Calaveras County officials saying they would seek "hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation" from PG&E. The county says residents and public agencies suffered more than $1 billion in damage and that it wants the California Public Utilities Commission to investigate the utility and fine it for starting the fire.

In an initial statement, the utility said it was reviewing Cal Fire's findings. "We are committed to doing the right thing for our customers and will respond in the normal legal process," the statement said.

Several hours later, PG&E released a second statement saying that after a preliminary review, "we accept the report’s finding that a tree made contact with a power line, but we do not believe it is clear what caused the tree to fail or that vegetation management practices fell short."

The Butte Fire started early the afternoon of last Sept. 9 and burned about 71,000 acres -- 110 square miles -- before it was contained on Oct. 1.

Cal Fire's report zeroes in on one cluster, or stand, of pines in the hills 4 miles east of Jackson, where the fire started.

A Cal Fire investigator who searched for the origins of the blaze a little more than an hour after it was first reported said he quickly spotted a slender pine that was slumped over immediately below power lines that run through the area.

The investigator, Gianni Muschetto, found that a 1-foot section of the tree about 2 feet from its top was charred, suggesting that it had come into contact with the overhead lines.

Subsequent inquiries determined that two Los Angeles-based contractors, ACRT Inc. and Trees Inc., had taken out two pines adjacent to the slumped-over tree in an apparent attempt to remove a fire threat.

A Cal Fire arborist said in a separate report made public Thursday that the removals increased the risk that the remaining trees would fall. The arborist's report explained that trees that grow on the interior of a stand are weaker and are prone to failure if stable, exterior trees are removed. (See Cal Fire's investigative file on the Butte Fire.)

The arborist also found that a range of other factors, including new growth on the spindly gray pine and prevailing winds, also played a part in the tree's toppling into the nearby power lines.

While the fire was still burning last September, PG&E said the area where the fire started had been the subject of half a dozen separate inspections in 2014 and 2015.

But Muschetto, the Cal Fire investigator, said a review of records from PG&E and its contractors found no evidence they had reinspected the stand of pines or identified the stand's weak interior trees as a potential hazard.

"Failing to identify the potential hazard of leaving weaker, inherently unstable trees on the edge of the stand, without conducting maintenance on them, ultimately led to the failure of the gray pine which contact the power line ... and ignited the uncontrolled wildland fire," Muschetto wrote.

In its second statement on the fire, PG&E defended its efforts to manage vegetation near its facilities and equipment.

"Our vegetation management program is among the very best in the industry and was expanded in 2014 in response to California’s historic drought to include special air and foot patrols, funding for lookout towers and cameras for early fire detection and funding for fire fuel reduction and emergency access projects and public education," the statement said.