Bobcat Fire

"...but a utility company can pay..." Not really. In the end it is the utility company's customers and shareholders who pay.

I agree that the negligence in maintaining the machinery should make you liable, to some extent, for damage to the company using or storing the explosives, but if the damage goes on further, then the explosives company wasn't adequately protecting the explosives, and they should be liable for the further damage.

Here's an article on PGE and how the bankruptcy judge was upset that the C-Suite was paid too much. Oops, I'm wrong; the article said that the judge rips them.

https://www.courthousenews.com/bankruptcy-judge-rips-pge-over-executive-bonuses/

If you fine the utility company, you are in essence punishing the people, because expenses are just passed along to the consumer...Utilities are regulated by the CPUC (California public utilities commission)

5 people that are overseeing the operations of all the utilities in California...and if you ask me their interests are a lot more liberal agenda based than should be the case...If anyone is to blame, it's them...

https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/

The CPUC is an interesting group. They helped destroy the phone utilities, though technology changes and old school management were also to blame.

The strange thing is that the CPUC was suppose to be a watchdog for utility companies, not an organization to penalize them or to help competitors (which they did too many times).

I don't know much about the CPUC in the last 10 years or so. I was indirectly involved with the "regulations" they created to attack the phone utilities.

In the case of PGE, it was proven that the C-Suite made a choice to defer maintenance to save money. The choice was a bad one and too many people lost their homes and lives. If you make an honest mistake, that's one thing, but to consciously make a choice is a different matter.

The CPUC regulates utility companies in CA.

AB 1054 (Assembly Bill) was signed into law in 2019. This is the law that allowed PGE to keep shareholder equity. I just read about it this evening. Disgusting! It should've been called the Bail out your friends Bill.

On the "silver lining" side, this year's fires are going to clear out fuel that decades of fire and land miss-management accumulated. I've heard some scientists refer to it as a potential for a reset.

Californians actually know what they need to do to mitigate the wildfire problems they have, the folks with the funds to do something about it just don't want to pay/sacrifice for it. It is not a short list and others have posted versions or parts of it here.

Executing any those actions becomes an intractable problem because as soon as the government tries to make (some) Americans do something they don't like it's an attack on rights and liberty and freedom or on the environment, then it's OK to lie, cheat, and take up arms against whatever it is they are asked to do. That inability to act problem is the first thing that needs fixing but I have no idea how to do that.

I don't want to live in CA for about four reasons: Too many wildland fires that lead to too many mudslides, too many earthquakes, and too many people. I'll stick to NE Ohio.

As for what to do, I don't want to get involved in the politics, but may have no choice when I suggest controlled burns, which was mentioned above several times. Also, don't feel compelled to extinguish every fire--let it become a controlled burn. Remember that the western states survived many centuries before people arrived.

What I don't understand, is if they are in such a devastating drought, why is the underbrush so thick?

Now this looks like a drought....

We're no longer in a drought. We had a couple years of solid rains and the reservoirs are in good shape.

Yes, controlled burns to build natural fire breaks - just in case a fire starts! I think that's a great starting point.

On the bright side:This same area will not burn again for a while,so it will be safe to rebuild and hope it never happens again.See how simple that is?

The hot dry air from the desert is compressed as it comes down the mountains,compressing it and increasing the temperature even more.

This primes a tinderbox for a fire and the least thing can start it, and it will spread rapidly,creating it's own wind.

A careless cigarette butt tossed out the window,a charcoal grill ember,even 2 rocks colliding.( Maybe even an hormone-intoxicated cricket rubbing his feet together too rapidly?)

Charcoal grilling is banned in some states during drought conditions,but maybe everyone doesn't get the message;tourists,etc.

Last I heard,this fire was started by a gender-reveal party,but who knows?

How can they tell?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QNV27C-8_I

The Gender Reveal Party caused the El Dorado Fire.

The Bobcat Fire was caused by SCE equipment.

The Ranch 2 Fire was caused by arson - a homeless man burned his adversary's belonging, which started the fire.

I can see a flurry of lawsuits springing from this fire.

The law firms are drooling all over their wingtips.

Did the gender reveal devices have warnings printed in large multi-lingual languages;How about sign languages and Braille

I don't think the fire was deliberately started,but was a result of group ignorance of the consequences of their actions.

I feel sorry for all of the parties involved in this terrible tragedy.

Education is expensive,but ignorance,even more so.

The Gender Reveal Party lit fireworks, which caused the fire. When you live in CA, you're fully aware of the dangers of lighting fireworks. In fact, it's illegal in most parts of the LA Basin.

Fire management - that's a great point.

Here in CA, our firefighters have a plan which is based on previous success and failure. When I first moved here, they did controlled burns, but I rarely hear or see them.

The terrain is so much different around CA. I live about a mile or so from the base of the mountain - where the houses stop. The mountain goes up pretty steeply and continues all the way to the top at around 7,000 feet. The mountains are so steep that a 7 3/4 mile hike with plenty of switchbacks rises about a mile! So from my house, I head on a slight uphill. Then the mountain rises much faster until the top is reached.

Interesting, I was over on the coast this weekend for a party. My son arrived and informed us that the neighbour's "gazebo" was smoking. So we went to investigate, around a mile away by road.

Yes, it was burning, with embers skipping up to 30' away. Another neighbour also there but the owner was away. long story short, it seems that the wind had damaged a power cord going to the gazebo, shorted enough to light it and burn through. ELCB tripped cutting power to water pump. I managed to trace the power back and reset breaker so we had water and got the fire under control.

Fire brigade arrived around 45mins after call. Unattended station is around 15km away, so to assemble a crew and get to site in that time was well done. If we three hadn't been there, I expect it would have been 15acres when they arrived and into some 6' high grass and then heavy woodland to the East.

Went back to party feeling good and smelling smoky. I was cooking pizza in an outdoor woodfired oven anyhow so didn't notice the smoke smell.

We had over 2" of rain in the week before this, but a single windy day made it dry enough for a fire to "run".

Wow, that's a close call! Good that it didn't start a wildfire!

Many years ago, there was a pretty large fire in Malibu. The fire was inland from Pepperdine College - if you're ever out here, you have to check out the campus - I don't know how they get any studying done! Burning embers flew about 1/4 - 1/2 mile and went into the attic via vent holes in the eaves. The house was about a block from the ocean and it caught fire - luckily it didn't spread.

Burning embers! Very dangerous.

If you eliminate the dead weight on the companies financials it isn't that hard. But, when your focus is paying big salaries, bonuses, compensation packages golden parachutes dividends etc, the profitability disappears. (mind you a public utility should not be "for Profit")

Unlike wire, poles, safety equipment, etc, the above listed expenses do nothing to increase the company's ability to provide safe reliable service and are often detrimental to such a practice because they have long since left the realm of realistic.

Because little Tommy doesnt need to live in a safe place to live. Buying my third Laguna Beach house is far more important. Cant let the COO of PGE make more money than me.

Ya'll really need to read 'The Smartest Men in the Room."

Not much to be done to prevent arson, but many electric utilities are mitigating wildfire as best they can using weather monitoring and other techniques. Check out: https://www.bvesinc.com/safety/wildfire-mitigation-plan

This is a really bad one. It's growing much too fast. And remember that Napa burned a couple years ago. The fuel shouldn't be there, but it is.

I just heard on NPR that the Glass fire is the fourth fire in three years in that region. How then can a prescribed, controlled burn possibly remove enough fuel to break this cycle of fires when an uncontrolled burn doesn't remove enough fuel in this region?

(4) fires.... I don’t know what that region is composed of,... maybe it’s tinder grasses...

Interested in how to access the Interrobang (symbol for sarcasm). ‽

https://qwerty.dev/interrobang/