Today, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) filed an Electric Incident Report with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) related to the Kincade Fire.
Yesterday by 3 p.m., PG&E had conducted a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) and turned off the power for safety to approximately 27,837 customers in Sonoma County, including Geyserville and the surrounding area. PG&E crews have been on the ground since last night supporting CAL FIRE’s efforts to fight the Kincade Fire and make the area safe.
As part of the PSPS, PG&E distribution lines in these areas were deenergized. Following PG&E’s established PSPS protocols and procedures, transmission lines in these areas remained energized.
Those transmission lines were not deenergized because forecast weather conditions, particularly wind speeds, did not trigger the PSPS protocol. The wind speeds of concern for transmission lines are higher than those for distribution.
PG&E’s report noted that at approximately 9:20 p.m. on October 23, 2019, PG&E became aware of a transmission level outage on the Geysers #9 Lakeville 230kV line when the line relayed and did not reclose, deenergizing the line.
At approximately 7:30 a.m. on October 24, 2019, a responding PG&E troubleman patrolling the Geysers #9 Lakeville 230 kV line observed that the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) had taped off the area around the base of transmission tower 001/006 in the area of the Kincade Fire.
The transmission tower noted above was inspected earlier this year as part of PG&E’s Wildfire Safety Inspection Program.
On site CAL FIRE personnel brought to the troubleman’s attention what appeared to be a broken jumper on the same tower.
This information is preliminary, and PG&E is continuing to investigate.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric energy companies in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/ and www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/index.page.
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