A federal judge wants PG&E Corp. to explain why it didn’t turn off power sooner to a utility line suspected of causing the second-largest wildfire in California history, Bloomberg News reported. At a hearing yesterday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who oversees PG&E’s criminal probation, questioned a PG&E troubleman who initially discovered that a tree had fallen on the line near the origin of the Dixie Fire. Alsup asked the worker, who the court wants to remain unidentified, why he didn’t consider shutting off power to the line while investigating the cause of the outage that occurred in a high-fire risk area. The troubleman said he initially didn’t see a tree on the line or signs of flames and needed to drive several hours before getting closer to the scene to investigate. When he arrived, he saw a tree leaning into wires and a small fire, which he tried to put out. It took PG&E almost 10 hours to respond to the initial sign of trouble on the early morning of July 13. “Wouldn’t it have been the prudent thing to do to turn that power off in case there was a tree on the line?,” Judge Alsup said during the hearing. Judge Alsup said that it was possible that the tree could have caused a ground fault with electricity flowing through it and eventually igniting it. He directed PG&E to identify the individuals who made the decision to respond to the event and answer his additional questions about the blaze by Friday.
