Photo: ROBYN BECK / AFP / Getty Images
For: EFE
Saturday, October 5
An electrical failure is the possible cause of the active Dixie fire in California
A failure in a power line is the main hypothesis as the cause that caused one of the largest fires active in California and that has already swept more than 12, 000 hectares, according to admitted this Monday in a report to the regulatory body 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 # DixieFir e 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 virtually the entire population of central and northern California.
In recent years, the company was found responsible for causing a multitude of ince ngios , some of them fatal, due to the poor and aging state of their electrical transmission lines, especially in mountainous areas with difficult access.
For this reason, she has had to pay millionaire compensation to the survivors and the families of the victims, while being harshly criticized in public for California politicians and to have continuous changes in their management team.
The “Dixie” fire, allegedly caused by the power line failure, is still active near the town of Paradise , that in 2018 was destroyed by the deadliest fire of California history, in which they died 85 people and that it also originated from a fault in a PG&E line.
Although the fire started almost a week, firefighters have only been able to contain it in a 15% , according to the most recent report from the Department of Forestry and California Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
Of the dozens of large fires active in the western United States., the largest of all is that of “Bootleg”, in Oregon , which has already been in use for more than 121, 000 acres burned and firefighters do not expect to have it completely 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 progress is minimal and has only been contained in a 25%, as reported by the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (NWCC).