PG&E Corp.’s top finance executive said Monday that the company wants to set up a special fund that would be used in part to assist cash-strapped people displaced by the Camp Fire, the historic Butte County blaze the bankrupt company’s equipment is suspected of starting in November, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Jason Wells, chief financial officer of the parent company of utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co., did not detail exactly how the fund would function but said PG&E is working with government officials to ensure it would not jeopardize any federal financial assistance provided to wildfire survivors. “We understand the impact the fire has had on so many individuals, and as soon as we complete these discussions with the governmental agencies, it is our intention to file that motion,” Wells said during a San Francisco meeting of creditors required as part of PG&E’s bankruptcy court proceedings. Wells told Gerald Singleton, one of the attorneys representing various wildfire victims, that PG&E “would have liked to have already filed this” but has to complete an analysis into whether it would conflict with aid that the Federal Emergency Management Agency gives to disaster victims.
