Diane Moss lost her home in the Santa Monica Mountains after power lines ignited the apocalyptic Woolsey Fire in 2018. Since then, she’s pressed for a safer electric grid in California."It’s so easy to forget the risk that we live in — until it happens to you," said Moss, a longtime clean energy advocate. "All of us in California have to think about how we better prepare to survive disaster, which is only going to be more of a problem as the climate changes.
Kevin Geraghty, chief operating officer of SDG&E, called the wildfire spending process "the most highly-scrutinized, regulatory utility process I have ever been involved in, in my life." On a temperate, clear morning in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Placerville in October, a PG&E construction crew donned yellow jackets and safety helmets and went about the work of burying power lines along a narrow, wooded road. Overhead lines snaked through thick trees in this area — prime fire risk territory. The workers buried the lines in a trench that had been dug using a heavy piece of equipment designed to cut hard concrete and soil.