Placer County, others sue PG&E for Mosquito Fire damages

Another lawsuit was filed Wednesday against Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) for damages related to the Mosquito Fire. Placer County - along with co-plaintiffs El Dorado County, El Dorado Water Agency, Georgetown Divide Public Utilities District and Georgetown Divide Fire Protection District - filed the complaint with the San Francisco Superior Court and seeks to recover taxpayer resources lost in the fire, according to a Placer County news release. "The lawsuit seeks to hold PG&E accountable and to help our community rebuild after this devastating fire," Placer County Counsel Karin Schwab said in a written statement. John Fiske of Baron & Budd, representing Placer County, said public entities have various types of damages, ranging from economic and infrastructure loss to loss of public resources and damage to roads, especially when entities are required to do significant hazard mitigation efforts to prevent flooding and debris flows during very rainy seasons, such as this year. "We are going to be working with the public entities over the next several months to understand the full suite of damages that they have suffered as a result of the Mosquito Fire," Fiske said in an interview with the Auburn Journal on Thursday morning, noting the entities' response during and after the fire can result in increased costs, decreased revenues and loss of assets. Fiske said the investigation into the damages is lengthy due to damages not fully being known for several months or possibly lasting for several years. The Mosquito Fire, the largest wildfire in California in 2022, ignited Sept. 6 at Oxbow Reservoir and Mosquito Ridge Road near Foresthill and burned 76,788 acres in Placer and El Dorado counties. The lawsuit alleges the fire "started when electrical equipment within PG&E's utility infrastructure contacted, or caused sparks to contact, surrounding vegetation." The lawsuit details the fire occurred because the company's infrastructure was constructed to pass electricity through exposed power lines in vegetated areas, PG&E failed to maintain and operate the electrical equipment in the infrastructure and failed to maintain an appropriate clearance area between the equipment and surrounding vegetation. Additionally, the lawsuit describes the utility provider's safety record as "an abomination" and notes the Mosquito Fire is not an isolated event due to the company's history of safety lapses through incidents including the 1999 Pendola Fire, 2004 Sims Fire, 2015 Butte Fire and 2018 Camp Fire. "We hired cause and origin experts, wildfire experts who have visited the site and have done their own investigation, and they have concluded that PG&E's equipment was the cause and origin of the fire," Fiske said. "The U.S. Forest Service has confiscated and collected evidence that is specifically PG&E equipment and we are coming to the same conclusion that that equipment that was confiscated was the cause and origin of the fire." Fiske said a resolution will be determined on how quickly the entities obtain an understanding of their damages as well as PG&E's willingness to resolve the case or its desire to litigate. "It just depends upon circumstances, but we hope for a recovery as quickly as possible because that's what helps these communities rebuild in the aftermath of these devastating fires," he said. "To the extent that there's other damages out there, public entities should step up and assert their claims so that they can help their communities rebuild." PG&E Spokesperson James Noonan responded to an email from the Auburn Journal on Thursday and said while there has been no determination of the fire, the company is cooperating with the U.S. Forest Service's investigation. Noonan noted the utility provider also filed an Electric Incident Report with the California Public Utilities Commission in September. According to an Auburn Journal report, that report acknowledged an "electrical fault occurred close to the reported time of the fire." "We are cooperating fully with this effort," Noonan said. "We remain focused on reducing wildfire risk across our service area and making our electric system more resilient to the climate-driven challenges we all face in California." This lawsuit is the latest against the utility provider following a suit filed by Placer County Water Agency in December, and a suit in late September filed on behalf of residents of Placer and El Dorado counties.