NAPA, Calif. — Atop an electrical pole overlooking grapevines, Pacific Gas & Electric recently installed a piece of equipment that will allow it to quickly turn off power to this part of California’s wine country when conditions for a wildfire are just right. As long as a basketball pole and wide as a backboard, the gear is a small but critical part of the utility’s yearslong, multibillion-dollar plan to prevent the kind of fires that have killed scores of people, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and businesses and, last year, sent PG&E into bankruptcy. Across Northern and Central California, where PG&E serves 16 million people, thousands of utility workers and contractors are scrambling up poles, trimming trees, installing video cameras, setting up weather stations and making other improvements to a grid that, in some areas, is more than a century old and has been poorly maintained. The importance of their work is underscored by how quickly spring greenery has turned into brittle, brown brush across much of the region.

Source: New York Times July 18, 2020 06:56 UTC