Air crews were making headway on the Dixie Fire in 2021 until an unidentified drone forced firefighting aircraft to ground shortly before winds picked up and night fell, and PG&E says that interruption justifies higher rates for customers because it was beyond the utility's control.
Nearly five years after the Dixie Fire became the second-largest wildfire in California history, PG&E is asking regulators to let it recover nearly $700 million from customers, arguing that a rogue drone that grounded firefighting aircraft helped turn a small blaze into a historic disaster, as NBC Bay Area reports.
As SFist reported back in July 2021, the Dixie Fire was first discovered after a PG&E technician investigating a power outage found a tree leaning into a power line and flames burning at its base in the area of Camp Creek and Dixie roads.
Cal Fire’s final report determined that PG&E equipment started the fire, and its response was excessively delayed.
According to the site Drone DJ, because of the steep terrain, fire crews had difficulty accessing the remote location, with ground crews unable to reach the fire until hours later after hiking about two miles from an out-of-service bridge.
As firefighters were close to getting the fire under control, an unidentified drone entered the airspace over the blaze, forcing Cal Fire to suspend its aircraft operations. The grounding lasted about 45 minutes, and by the time the airspace was cleared, darkness had set in, and the operation was called off for the night.
“It was getting on towards evening and a drone showed up,” Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said, per NBC Bay Area. “The policy, appropriately so, of Cal Fire is when there’s a drone or something obstructing their flight path, they have to call the flight off.”
The Dixie Fire ultimately went on to burn for 103 days across Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta, and Tehama counties, scorching more than 963,000 acres and becoming the second-largest wildfire in California history and the most expensive in US history, as previously reported.
According to NBC Bay Area, the utility has since paid hundreds of millions of dollars in claims through insurance and the state’s wildfire fund, but it is now asking the California Public Utilities Commission to allow it to recover nearly $700 million more through customer rates, arguing that the drone interference was a factor outside its control that allowed the fire to spread.
PG&E said it had been found to be a “prudent operator” during the period before the fire and that state law allows utilities to seek cost recovery for wildfire expenses in certain circumstances.
Ramsey disagrees with PG&E’s argument, saying the drone’s impact on firefighting does not erase the utility’s responsibility for starting the blaze.
Top image: A resident looks on as the Dixie fire burns into a neighborhood on August 16, 2021 near Janesville, California. The Dixie fire has burned over 578,000 acres, has destroyed over 1,000 homes and threatens thousands more. The fire, the largest single fire in California state history, is 31 percent contained. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
