by Brian Leubitz

The fires are still raging in the North Bay. There are at least 23 confirmed deaths due to the fires, but the number of missing is still in the hundreds. Mandatory and recommended evacuations are still in place for many neighborhoods in Napa and Sonoma Counties, and the fire grew to nearly 35,000 acres overnight. Smoke is covering large portions of the Bay Area, closing all schools in Napa County and most in Sonoma. Communities throughout the Bay Area have “unhealthy” air, including Oakland as the Number 2 worst air in the country right now. (After Napa.) And the devastation is stark. The drone video of this USPS driver delivering mail to a burned out subdivision is haunting.

Yet with all the devastation, and the continued fight to contain the fires, questions linger about whether we could have done more to prevent the fires and save lives once they started. The cause of the fires has not yet been fully determined, but with the warm winds on Sunday night, it wouldn’t take much of a spark to start an inferno. And it seems that several downed PG&E lines may have provided that spark:

On Wednesday, Cal Fire said that investigators have started looking into whether toppled power wires and exploding transformers Sunday night may have ignited the simultaneous string of blazes. The acknowledgment followed publication of a review by the Bay Area News Group of Sonoma County firefighters’ radio transmissions in the fires’ infancy that found that there were numerous downed and arcing wires. In the first 90 minutes Sunday night, firefighters were sent to 10 different spots where problems had been reported with the area’s electrical infrastructure. The crews reported seeing sparking lines and transformers.(SJ Merc)

We will eventually get a more complete determination, but this doesn’t look good for PG&E. It also doesn’t look good for the Governor, after he vetoed Orange County Sen. Moorlach’s bipartisan legislation (SB 1263) to require the California Public Utilities Commission to prioritize fire vulnerable areas for electrical line mitigation measures, and work with CalFire and local fire departments to develop maps and a system of “enhance mitigation measures.”

Brown vetoed the measure, saying that the CPUC was already doing the work. Brown doesn’t love stepping in with legislation when action is already in motion. That’s just Jerry. And it is far from clear that it would have changed anything for this fire even if it was signed.

Questions also remain as to whether authorities could have done more to alert residents in the early hours of Monday morning as the fire tore through neighborhoods. County officials used their subscription based services, but did not put out a general wireless alert:

As fires that would prove devastating burned across the North Bay late Sunday, Sonoma County considered sending a mass alert to cell phones in the region to warn of the rapidly spreading flames. But county officials decided against it, worried that doing so might create widespread panic and hinder the ability of first responders to combat the blazes.
It’s unclear how much that decision might have affected area residents’ responses to the deadly wildfires, particularly since many cell phone towers were destroyed in the blaze, making such messages undeliverable. But it adds to concerns that some in the fires’ paths were not alerted about the danger, leaving them little time to flee.(SF Gate)

Besides the downed cell phone service, the limited geographic filters meant that more people than necessary would have started evacuations and brought traffic to roads needed by firefighters. Ultimately, it was a judgement call, and it is difficult to really go back and determine if a larger blast would have been a net positive. Surely there will be time for much further review of all of these questions once the fire is put out and the communities can get to the long process of recovery.