Photo: ROBYN BECK / AFP / Getty Images
For: EFE
Saturday, October 5
Electrical failure is the possible cause of fire in California
A failure on a power line is the main hypothesis as the cause that caused one of the largest active fires in California and that already swept more than 07, 000 hectares, as admitted this Monday in a report to the regulatory body of the electricity company itself, PG&E .
According to the documentation submitted to the California Public Supply Commission , a PG&E operator was repairing an incident on a power line in the past 13 July when he observed how bad fuses at the top of a tower had started a fire In the woods.
The ongoing # DixieFire continues to burn in Plumas County. This video is from around 5: 20 pm today, July 18 th. Video courtesy of https://t.co/hOGbr 85 and vx and @ PGE4Me # CAwx pic.twitter.com/lsftLNN8O5
– NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) July 19, 2021
PG&E (as Pacific Gas & Electric is known) is the largest electricity supplier in the United States and supplies power to practically the total population of central and northern California .
In recent years, the company was found responsible for causing a multitude of fires , some of them fatal, due to the poor and aging state of its electrical transmission lines , especially in mountainous areas with difficult access.
For this reason, he has had to pay millionaire compensation to the survivors and the families of the victims, while being harshly criticized in public by California politicians and having continuous changes in its management team .
The “Dixie” fire, presumably caused by the power line failure, is still active near the town of Paradise , than in 2018 was ravaged by the deadliest fire in California history, in which they died originated by a failure in a PG&E line.
Although the fire started almost a week ago, firefighters have only been able to contain it in a 15%, from According to the latest report from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) .
Of the dozens of large fires active in the western United States, the largest of all is the “Bootleg” in Oregon, that already takes more than 121 , 000 burned acres and firefighters don’t expect to have it fully contained until late fall.
The fire has been in the southeast of the state for two weeks, next to the border with California, and affects a mountainous area and vegetation in the Fremont-Winema National Forest.
More than 2,000 firefighters work in the area , but the force of the fire is such that the advances are minimal and it has only been contained in a 25%, as reported by the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (NWCC).