PG&E told a federal judge Monday it has no knowledge of a drone flight that interfered with firefighters last month during the very first hours of the Dixie Fire, a blaze that has become the largest single-origin wildfire in modern California history.
The FBI, Federal Aviation Administration and local prosecutors all are investigating who was flying the drone, which a Cal Fire air attack pilot spotted early the evening of July 13 as tankers and a water-dropping helicopter were working to extinguish the fire.
The blaze started July 13 when a tree fell across PG&E power lines adjacent to one of the company’s hydropower dams on the Feather River.
Those circumstances prompted U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing PG&E’s five-year term of probation for a criminal conviction arising from the 2010 San Bruno natural gas pipeline disaster, to order the company to tell him what it knows about the drone flight.