NATION
Friday, January 25, 2019
East Oregonian
A7
Agency: Deadly California fire caused by homeowner equipment
By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
— In a long-awaited report,
state investigators said
Thursday that a 2017 wild-
fire that killed 22 people in
Northern California wine
country was caused by a
private electrical system,
not equipment belonging
to embattled Pacific Gas &
Electric Corp.
The state firefighting
agency concluded that the
blaze started next to a res-
idence. It did not find any
violations of state law.
“I eliminated all other
causes for the Tubbs Fire,
with the exception of an
electrical caused fire orig-
inating from an unknown
event affecting privately
owned conductor or equip-
ment,” CalFire Battalion
Chief John Martinez wrote
in his report.
Some details about the
property, including its
owner and address, were
blacked out of the report. It
said the Napa County prop-
erty about 3 miles north of
Calistoga was built in 1946
on about 10.5 acres with a
wine cellar, pool and several
outbuildings.
The fire was one of more
than 170 that torched the
state in October 2017. It
destroyed more than 5,600
structures over more than 57
square miles in Sonoma and
Napa counties.
PG&E previously said it
plans to file for bankruptcy
protection next week, cit-
ing billions of dollars in
potential damages from
lawsuits linking its equip-
ment to other deadly blazes
for which it has been deter-
mined to be at fault.
The company said in
a statement that despite
Thursday’s finding, PG&E
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File
In this Oct. 14, 2017, file photo, a firefighter holds a water
hose while fighting a wildfire in Santa Rosa, Calif.
“still faces extensive litiga-
tion, significant potential
liabilities and a deteriorating
financial situation.”
Gov. Gavin Newson said
billions of dollars in poten-
tial damages from wild-
fire-related lawsuits stem
from the wine country fire.
“This obviously begs the
question, Now what? Do
we anticipate that PG&E
will move forward ... to file
bankruptcy?” Newsom told
reporters in Sacramento.
“They have the right to make
that determination and we
will respond accordingly.”
Michael Kelly, an attor-
ney for victims of the fire,
said the findings wouldn’t
have much effect on the law-
suits he has filed.
“We’re going to stick by
our guns,” Kelly said, add-
ing that there are still ques-
tions about why PG&E
didn’t cut power to the area
despite a high fire danger. He
said there is also evidence
that contradicts the findings
of state fire investigators.
Trading of PG&E Corp.
stock was halted twice after
news about the cause of
the fire prompted a surge
of buy orders. Once trad-
ing resumed, the price rock-
eted up, closing up $5.96, or
nearly 75 percent, at $13.35
a share.
A state senator said that
just because a private elec-
tric line caused the wine
country fire does not let the
utility off the hook for the
role of its equipment in other
devastating fires in the state.
State Sen. Bill Dodd, a
Napa Democrat, cited sys-
temwide issues plaguing
California’s largest utility.
Lawmakers are under
pressure to find a solution
that addresses utility reform
and compensates wildfire
victims.
“This underscores the
idea that we all have a role to
play in wildfire prevention,”
said Dodd a frequent critic
of PG&E, who noted that the
company has already been
found at fault for more than
a dozen other Northern Cal-
ifornia wildfires.
PG&E said in a Jan. 2
court filing that it believed
a handyman performing
unlicensed electrical work
started the wine country fire.
In the report released
Thursday by the state,
one witness reported see-
ing a transformer explode.
Another reported seeing the
fire approach a PG&E power
pole.
BRIEFLY
High heat but no
record: 2018 was
4th warmest year
on Earth
WASHINGTON (AP) —
While Earth was a tad cooler
last year than the last cou-
ple of years, it still was the
fourth warmest on record, a
new analysis shows.
With the partial U.S. gov-
ernment shutdown, fed-
eral agency calculations for
last year’s temperatures are
delayed. But independent
scientists at Berkeley Earth
calculate that last year’s
average temperature was
58.93 degrees.
That’s 1.39 degrees
warmer than the average
from 1951 to 1980 and about
2.09 degrees warmer than
pre-industrial times.
It’s likely other tempera-
ture measuring groups will
agree on 2018’s ranking
since they had it at fourth
hottest through November,
said Berkeley Earth climate
scientist Zeke Hausfather.
The Japanese Meteorolog-
ical Agency has already
calculated it at fourth.
Record-keeping started in
1850.
Only 2016, 2017 and
2015 were warmer than last
year, with only small dif-
ferences among them. That
was mostly because of natu-
ral yearly weather variations
like El Niño and La Niña,
Hausfather said. He said it
would be foolish to call last
year’s slight dip a cooling
trend.
Rare pangolins
languish in China
wildlife rescue
system
WASHINGTON (AP) —
When Chinese police found
them in the trunk of a smug-
gler’s car, 33 of the traf-
ficked pangolins — endan-
gered scaly mammals from
southern China — were still
alive, wrapped in plastic
bags soaked with their own
urine.
But the fate of the crea-
tures — whose scales are
worth nearly their weight in
silver on the black market —
was not a happy one. Every
last pangolin died in govern-
ment captivity within a few
months of the August 2017
seizure.
A pioneering environ-
mental nonprofit in Beijing
has launched an investiga-
tion, called “counting pan-
golins,” to figure out what
happens to such animals
recovered from the illegal
wildlife trade. Its findings so
far highlight discrepancies
between environmental laws
and outcomes.
China is hardly unique.
The number of environmen-
tal laws on the books world-
wide has increased 38-fold
since 1972, according to an
exhaustive U.N. Environ-
ment report released Thurs-
day. But the political will
and capacity to enforce those
laws often lags — under-
mining global efforts to curb
issues like wildlife traffick-
ing, air pollution and climate
change, the report found.
“The law doesn’t self-ex-
ecute,” said Carl Bruch, a
study co-author and direc-
tor of international pro-
grams at the Environmental
Law Institute in Washing-
ton, D.C.
Police say Florida
bank attack
that killed 5 was
random act
SEBRING, Fla. (AP) —
Investigators have found no
obvious reason why a man
accused of fatally shooting
five women picked a small-
town bank in Florida as the
place to carry out his attack,
authorities said Thursday.
Zephen Xaver’s attack
did not appear to be part of
a robbery, and he had no
apparent connection to the
SunTrust branch or the four
employees and one customer
who were killed, police said.
There was also no evi-
dence
that
Wednes-
day’s attack was planned,
although a former girlfriend
said Xaver often talked of
killing people.
“We believe it was a ran-
dom act,” Sebring Police
Chief Karl Hoglund said
Thursday at a news confer-
ence. “Aside from perhaps
driving by and seeing it was
a bank, we have no known
evidence that he targeted
this bank for any particular
reason.”
That randomness hit
Carol Davis, who manages
the hair salon and spa next
door, hard. If the gunman
had driven 10 seconds far-
ther, just one more drive-
way, the victims would have
been her, her staff and her
customers.
Florida elections
chief resigns when
blackface photos
emerge
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.
(AP) — Florida’s top elec-
tions
official
abruptly
resigned Thursday after a
newspaper obtained pictures
of him in blackface dressed
as a Hurricane Katrina vic-
tim at a 2005 party.
Secretary
of
State
Michael Ertel, who had been
on the job less than three
weeks, resigned just hours
after he testified about elec-
tion lawsuits before a state
legislative committee.
The Tallahassee Demo-
crat obtained pictures taken
at a Halloween party 14 years
ago that show Ertel dressed
in blackface while wear-
ing earrings, a New Orle-
ans Saints bandanna and
fake breasts under a purple
T-shirt with “Katrina Vic-
tim” written on it. The pho-
tos were taken two months
after the deadly storm rav-
aged the Gulf Coast region
and eight months after Ertel
was appointed Seminole
County supervisor of elec-
tions. The newspaper hasn’t
said how it got the photos or
identified the source.
Ertel was the Semi-
nole elections supervisor
until new Gov. Ron DeSan-
tis picked him last month
to take over the department
that oversees elections.
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