The United States is getting $80 million from Southern California Edison for the 2017 Thomas Fire, which burned through more than 280,000 acres. That’s cash money.
Why? To recoup the damages and cost of fighting said fire on 150,000 acres of Los Padres National Forest in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Los Padres is getting roughly $38 million of the pie. So, where’s the rest going?
Nobody the Sun spoke with could tell us. Not Los Padres Forest Supervisor Chris Stubbs and not Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Casselman. Well, Casselman said there were “categories” of how the money could be spent: emergency rehab costs, firefighting cost recovery, reforestation, hazardous tree removal.
That’s a lot of money not going to the actual national forest in which this fire happened. It’d be nice to be privy to some of the specifics.
In addition to paying the U.S. government, Edison has also paid out at least $150 million to public agencies in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties for the Thomas Fire and resulting 2018 Montecito debris flow that killed 23 people.
It paid out an additional couple of hundred million to other agencies in connection to the Woolsey Fire, which burned through almost 100,000 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains and through Malibu in 2018.
The utility also agreed to pay $110 million in fines to the California Public Utilities Commission over these two fires and three others in Southern California and were prevented from charging ratepayers for $375 million in costs related to uninsured claims. All told, the fires cost the utility close to a billion dollars and counting.
And it’s not the only utility that’s paid out hundreds of millions of dollars for damages related to equipment-sparked wildfires in California, damaging homes, recreation areas, forested land, and private property and killing residents. They’ve taken steps to correct the devastating error of their ways: Not maintaining their infrastructure. But it’s baby steps.
Little, tiny baby steps. Southern California Edison has so far covered 5,700 miles of power lines with non-conductive material to reduce wildfire risk, has a “robust” vegetation management program to cut back trees that are too close to power lines, and conducts 360-degree inspections of equipment.
For a billion dollars, the utility probably could have buried miles and miles of power lines underground. It could have maintained its equipment in the years preceding the costly wildfires.
Utility Spokesperson David Eisenhauer called the settlement with the Forest Service a “reasonable resolution.” One of the terms of that settlement means that the utility doesn’t have to admit fault, which is awesome for them—legally.
Is it reasonable? How much should a human life cost? How much does a burned acre of forest cost? Putting a wildland firefighter at risk? I guess that’s why they have lawyers for that stuff. At least through lawsuits there’s some accountability.
“We continue to protect our communities from the risk of wildfire with grid hardening, situational awareness, and enhanced operational practices,” he said.
Maybe that lesson was learned too late for Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric, and others that didn’t do what they were supposed to and prevent catastrophic wildfires.
Hopefully, it’s a lesson that others across the country take to heart.
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