California power company wants to bury cables to prevent fires
Pacific Gas and Electric high-voltage power lines in Santa Rosa, California, November 20, 2019 (Illustrative image).
© JUSTIN SULLIVAN / Getty Images via AFP
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2 min
Involved in the start of a new fire in California, the electricity supplier Pacific Gas and Electricic has announced measures to prevent its equipment from being involved in other fires.
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Pacific Gas and Electric intends to bury more than 16,000 kilometers of power lines.
A long-term project: it will take at least ten years and tens of billions of dollars to achieve it.
The impact could be a little faster.
Work will begin in areas with the highest fire risk.
These measures were due to be announced in several months, but Pacific Gas and Electric has accelerated its schedule after being implicated in the start of a new fire in mid-July, the Dixie Fire.
The latter burns just a few miles from where a spark from a PG&E power line
sparked the deadliest fire
in recent California history
in 2018
, killing 86 people and destroying 18,000 buildings in the area. Paradise area.
PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 manslaughter.
She also pledged to pay billions of dollars for several fires, to the point of causing her bankruptcy.
Other solutions had emerged in recent years: companies had decided to carry out preventive power cuts in hot and windy weather.
An unpopular measure and criticized by the governor of California Gavin Newsom, who had also accused PG&E of "
decades of negligence
".
The operator has long been accused of putting profits before safety.
► To read also: New giant fires in the West of the United States
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