The fire, caused by equipment on a transmission tower near Geyserville that broke in high winds, caused the largest evacuation in Sonoma County history of nearly 200,000 people.
photo credit: Courtesy https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2019/kincade-fire-origin/ The ignition point for 2020's Kincaid Fire, according to a special reporting
project by the San Francisco Chronicle.
PG&E is mostly keeping up with maintenance and repairs of its utility lines and infrastructure in Sonoma County but has discrepancies between its inspection results and a court-appointed monitor, five years after it was found to be responsible for starting the Kincade Fire, according to the independent monitor's report made public Thursday.
The court-approved monitor, Filsinger Energy Partners, completed its second annual compliance report to Sonoma County's district attorney in June and showed hundreds of deficiencies that the utility company has largely cleared over the past year.
PG&E was placed under the five-year stipulated judgement to report its own inspections to the independent monitor, which also performed its own inspections, after the utility was determined to be responsible for starting the Kincade Fire in October 2019 that burned 77,000 acres, destroyed 374 structures and injured four people.
The fire, which was caused by equipment on a transmission tower near Geyserville that broke in high winds, caused the largest evacuation in Sonoma County history of nearly 200,000 people, according to District Attorney Carla Rodriguez's office.
In its second annual report, the monitor's inspectors frequently noted issues in PG&E's distribution infrastructure that were not noted by its own inspectors, noting an issue about 22% more often than PG&E inspectors. The report said the issues did not qualify as "deficiencies" under the stipulated judgement, which are defined as violations of the specific commitments in the judgement, but they were noted for PG&E's consideration.
The most frequent discrepancies were when the monitor noted an issue with a conductor having a section that was energized and exposed, or had visible damage. The monitor's inspections found 21% higher the rate noted for that category than PG&E's.
It also found non-exempt equipment at an inspection location 12% more often than PG&E and damaged hardware components 11% more often.
The report said that the utility was following through with its agreement to create 100 jobs in the county and could exceed that number by the time the agreement is up in 2027. It has so far filled 44 new positions in the county.
The report by the independent monitor found that PG&E was largely responsive over the last year to addressing hazards and deficiencies in the field, such as overgrown trees and faulty equipment. It corrected four issues the monitor identified as "immediate safety hazards." Two were related to uprooting trees, one was for a broken branch hanging above a primary conductor, and another was related to vegetation contacting a primary conductor.
The monitor reviewed 214 miles of inspections performed by PG&E and found the utility had addressed 128 out of 131 identified deficiencies. Fixes for the outstanding three are in progress.
Only one of the 51 transmission lines inspected was found to have a deficiency, which is being addressed, the report said.
Just two issues were found in a review of the utility's 1,087 distribution components that the monitor said PG&E had already fixed.
Rodriguez said the compliance agreement and her office were bringing accountability for the 2019 fire.
"I appreciate PG&E's efforts thus far to remedy any deficiencies discovered by the Monitor and am looking forward to continued progress and cooperation going forward," she said.
PG&E said in a statement that it was on track to meet its commitments made in the stipulated judgement.
"Ongoing and expanded efforts to address the growing threat of wildfires are detailed in our Wildfire Mitigation Plan, and include undergrounding and system hardening, increased situational awareness and intelligence, asset management and inspections including using advanced tools and technology like drones, and vegetation management and patrol," said a statement from PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo.
The company has also made required donations over the past year to several nonprofit organizations that were impacted by the fire and entered into an agreement to start a fire safety training program at Santa Rosa Junior College.
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