A wildfire that scorched nearly 1,000,000 acres across five Northern California counties and destroyed more than 1,300 buildings last summer ignited after a tree fell on an electrical line owned by the state's largest utility, officials say.
after the August Complex, a wildfire that scorched more than 1 million acres in 2020.
In a statement, Pacific Gas & Electric said the tree that struck the power line was"one of more than 8 million" within"strike distance to PG&E lines."that it had committed to burying 10,000 of its more than 100,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines.that the 70-foot Douglas fir that appears to have started the Dixie Fire showed signs of rot at its base, NBC Bay Area reported.
Matteo Garbelotto, a forest pathologist at the University of California, Berkeley, told the station that such rot is becoming increasingly common in the state’s overgrown forests as a drought worsened by climate change pushes dense trees to compete with one another for water.State rules require the utility to remove dead, diseased and dying trees that could fall into power lines.