Here to Help

The recent Northern California wildfires are the deadliest and most devastating fires in California history. Sadly, it has been reported that these fires have killed at least dozens of people and destroyed over 5,000 homes.

Victims of these fires will now have to face the unfortunate reality that insurance coverages for these losses, such as homeowner's insurance, will likely be insufficient to cover the total amount of what has been lost. However, there are others options for victims who have been injured, killed or suffered fire damage to their property. If it is determined that PG&E's negligence caused the wildfires, victims may be entitled to recover additional compensation from PG&E.

PG&E Liability

At this stage, it appears that electrical problems with PG&E equipment may have been a factor in causing the Wine Country fires. At or around the time fires were observed, there were a number of calls for service reporting PG&E power equipment failures, including but not limited to downed power lines sparking and transformers exploding. There are also questions surrounding PG&E’s failure to properly maintain vegetation growth around the power lines, which may have contributed to the spread of the blaze.

PG&E is denying any wrongdoing and is claiming that these equipment failures were caused by extreme winds, not its own negligence. On the other hand, they have also admitted that their insurance coverage of about $800 million is insufficient tocover the losses of the fire, which is estimated to total more than $1 billion.

A number of California regulatory bodies and fire officials are taking efforts to confirm that PG&E’s power equipment failures played a role in the firestorms. The State of California Public Utilities Commission (“CPUC”) has already demanded that PG&E preserve all potential evidence related to these fires.

Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver, PC is taking similar efforts to place PG&E, and other entities on notice to preserve all potentially relevant evidence. We are also awaiting receipt of information and records related to these potential PG&E power equipment failures.