PG&E pleads not guilty in 2020 wildfire in Northern California that killed four people

PG&E Corp. pleaded not guilty Thursday to criminal charges filed in connection with a 2020 wildfire that killed four people in Shasta County.

The innocent plea in Shasta Superior Court was hardly a surprise. California’s largest utility has long said that while its equipment sparked the Zogg Fire, its conduct didn’t constitute criminal behavior.

Shasta’s district attorney filed 31 felony and misdemeanor charges against PG&E last fall, including four counts of manslaughter. Cal Fire investigators concluded that the fire began when a tree made contact with a PG&E power line. PG&E said it accepted the finding but Chief Executive Patti Poppe said at the time, “We did not commit a crime.”

The fire occurred in September 2020, just weeks after PG&E was fined $4 million after pleading guilty to 85 felony manslaughter charges in connection with the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history.

The company, eager to restore its reputation after a string of massive wildfires plunged it into bankruptcy in 2019, made deals to avoid prosecution in April over last year’s Dixie Fire in the northern Sacramento Valley and the 2019 Kincade Fire in Sonoma County. The utility agreed to pay more than $55 million in fines, charitable contributions and other expenditures in the affected communities. The district attorneys involved in the settlement calculated that the maximum criminal penalties, if they’d pursued prosecutions, would have come to $329,000.

But the Shasta district attorney, Stephanie Bridgett, wouldn’t make a deal over the Zogg Fire.

“We do have four people who tragically lost their life,” Bridgett said Thursday, according to ABC10. “We’re going to make sure PG&E is held responsible criminally and potentially as well civilly.”

This story was originally published June 9, 2022 at 3:48 PM.