The utility, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, is upgrading power lines, trimming trees and making other changes to prevent another big fire.
By Ivan Penn • Photographs by Jim Wilson
NAPA, Calif. — Atop an electrical pole overlooking grapevines, Pacific Gas & Electric recently installed a piece of equipment that will allow it to quickly turn off power to this part of California’s wine country when conditions for a wildfire are just right.
As long as a basketball pole and wide as a backboard, the gear is a small but critical part of the utility’s yearslong, multibillion-dollar plan to prevent the kind of fires that have killed scores of people, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and businesses and, last year, sent PG&E into bankruptcy. MORE>>
SOURCE ARTICLE: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/business/energy-environment/pge-wildfire-california-summer.html