Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is working on an ambitious project to bury thousands of miles of power lines in an effort to prevent igniting fires with its equipment and avoid shutting down electricity during hot and windy weather.
PG&E announced last year that it planned to bury 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) of power lines in the next decade at a projected cost of $15 billion to $30 billion. The announcement came just days after PG&E informed regulators that a 70-foot (23-meter) pine tree that toppled on one of its power lines ignited a major fire in Butte County, the same rural area about 145 miles (233 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco where another fire sparked by its equipment killed more than 80 people and destroyed thousands of homes in 2018.
