Pacific Gas and Electric
Last year, just months before the Zogg fire began, PG&E pled guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the massive 2018 fire that destroyed Paradise, CA. That fire was also caused by the utility company's failure to maintain its equipment. In the case of the Zogg fire, investigators have determined that a single sick tree that PG&E failed to remove, fell onto a power line, setting off a spark.
According to Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett, PG&E's "failure was reckless and criminally negligent, and it resulted in the death of four people."
The manslaughter charges are just four of the 31 charges that were announced against PG&E by Bridgett on Friday--11 of those 31 counts are felony charges.
Bridgett will need to win a conviction before PG&E will face any punishments. If the utility company is convicted of manslaughter, it will be charged a fine for each of the deaths because, as Bridgett puts it, corporations "can't go to jail".
"One of our primary functions here is to hold them responsible and let the surviving families know that their loved one did not die in vain," she added.
However, PG&E maintains that its failure to prevent the 2020 Zogg fire was not a criminal act. According to negligence suits filed against the company by the counties that were impacted, the tree that caused the fire had been marked for removal two years earlier. PG&E said that the tree was later marked as safe.
"This was a tragedy, four people died. And my coworkers are working so hard to prevent fires and the catastrophic losses that come with them. They have dedicated their careers to it, criminalizing their judgment is not right," PG&E CEO Patti Poppe said in a statement.
Out of the four victims killed in the fire, three died in or near their vehicles as they attempted to escape the flames. The fourth victim of the fire died in a hospital. Friday's charges also include an enhancement on the charges against the company for the spinal fracture and resulting paralyzation of a 29-year-old firefighter. The firefighter was hit by a falling tree and has been paralyzed front eh chest down ever since.
Bridgett also filed criminal charges relating to other fires allegedly started by PG&E in her county over the course of the last year. Despite PG&E's claims to the contrary, Bridgett determined that the company should be held criminally liable for the fires.
PG&E has quite the shady past: it filed for bankruptcy in 2019 due to wildfire-related fines and settlements; a PG&E pipeline near the San Francisco Bay exploded and killed eight people in 2010, an incident for which the company remains on criminal probation.
The company has also acknowledged that its equipment may have been involved in a wildfire earlier this year that was the second-largest wildfire ever seen in CA. It also is still facing criminal and civil charges for a 2019 wildfire that led to the evacuation of 200,000 residents.
The settlements for wildfire injuries and damages that have been agreed to by the company fall into the tens of billions. However, because half of the victim fund is comprised of PG&E stock, it is now billions of dollars short of the amount required to compensate victims.
