California utility to pay $55 million for massive wildfires

Pacific Gas & Electric has agreed to pay more than $55 million to avoid criminal prosecution for two major wildfires started by its aging power lines in Northern California

SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Gas & Electric has agreed to pay more than $55 million to avoid criminal prosecution for two major wildfires started by aging Northern California power lines belonging to the nation’s largest utility, prosecutors announced Monday.

PG&E does not admit wrongdoing in the two settlements reached with prosecutors for last year’s Dixie Fire — one of the biggest wildfires in California’s history — and the 2019 Kincade Fire in Sonoma County. The deals expedite damage payments to the hundreds of people whose homes were destroyed.

PG&E also will submit to five years of oversight by an independent monitor similar to the supervision it faced during five years of criminal probation after it was convicted for misconduct that contributed to its natural gas explosion that killed eight people in 2010.

Pacific Gas & Electric has been blamed for more than 30 wildfires since 2017 that wiped out more than 23,000 homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people. It previously reached settlements with wildfire victims of more than $25.5 billion.