Pg&E Tells Judge It 'Strongly Disagrees' With Implication It Knowingly Failed To Repair Cause Of Camp Fire - SFGate

Pg&E Tells Judge It 'Strongly Disagrees' With Implication It Knowingly Failed To Repair Cause Of Camp Fire - SFGate: SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

PG&E Co. told a federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday that it denies a Wall Street Journal article's implication that it knowingly delayed repairing the transmission line maintenance problem that caused last year's deadly Camp Fire.

"PG&E strongly disagrees with the Wall Street Journal article's suggestion that PG&E knew of the specific maintenance conditions that caused the Camp Fire and nonetheless deferred work that would have addressed those conditions," the utility said in a court filing.

The filing was an answer to a July 10 order by U.S. District Judge William Alsup requiring PG&E to respond "paragraph by paragraph" to a 46-paragraph journal article in February that was entitled "PG&E Knew for Years Its Lines Could Spark Wildfires, and Didn't Fix Them."

PG&E admitted to a number of the article's allegations, including that it knew parts of its transmission system were aging and that an equipment failure caused the Camp Fire of Nov. 8, 2018. The blaze killed 85 people, burned more than 150,000 acres and destroyed most of the city of Paradise in Butte County.

The cause was the failure of a steel suspension hook on a nearly 100-year-old