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Pacific Gas & Electric has faced increased heat from regulators and outrage from consumers who have watched the state’s largest utility file for bankruptcy protection, then say that its equipment probably started the deadly Camp Fire.

San Francisco is exploring a public takeover, and various financial stakeholders in the company have circled as complex bankruptcy negotiations start. But how did PG&E get here?

This week, my colleagues published a piece detailing how the company has overlooked risks in favor of its bottom line over the years. And nothing explains it better than one very old tower in the Sierra Nevada foothills. I asked Ivan Penn, a business reporter based here in L.A., to explain how they got the story:

After the latest wave of wildfires in which Pacific Gas & Electric has been implicated, Peter Eavis, James Glanz and I were assigned to take a deep look at a persistent question: What kind of safety culture has PG&E built?

I am an energy reporter; Peter is a financial reporter in New York, and Jim is a veteran investigative reporter. Each of us brought pieces of the puzzle to the table, and one stood out: Tower 27/222, a 99-year-old transmission tower suspected of causing the 2018 Camp Fire, the worst wildfire in California history. A source pointed us to one document in particular, a form filed with federal regulators in which PG&E noted that the “useful life” of such towers expired at 75 years.