After shutting off power for more than 2 million Californians earlier this month, the state's largest utility defended the controversial decision, saying the move prevented its equipment from sparking catastrophic wildfires.



But on Wednesday evening, hours after Pacific Gas & Electric shut off electricity once again, this time to 178,000 customers, one of the utility's high-voltage transmission lines in the hills north of San Francisco malfunctioned, according to a report submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission.

Six minutes later, a fast-moving blaze fueled by powerful winds was reported in the area, forcing thousands of people in Sonoma County, including the entire town of Geyserville, to evacuate their homes in darkness.

PG&E said Thursday that while its distribution lines in the area were shut off as part of its second public safety power shutoff this month, high-voltage transmission lines in the area where the Kincade fire ignited Wednesday night were not.

"Those transmission lines were not deenergized because forecast weather conditions, particularly wind speeds, did not trigger the PSPS protocol," the utility said in a statement.



The cause of the Kincade fire, which has burned 16,000 acres and was 5% contained as of Thursday evening, is still under investigation. Meanwhile, the CPUC is conducting its own investigation "to assess the compliance of the electric facilities with applicable rules and regulations."

PG&E said it became aware of the outage on a 230,000-volt transmission line "when the line relayed and did not reclose." On Thursday, a PG&E employee patrolling the line observed that Cal Fire had taped off the area around the base of the transmission tower and "what appeared to be a broken jumper on the same tower."

The utility said the tower was inspected earlier this year as part of its wildfire safety program.

"Filing the [report] does not tell us where the fire started so that the fact that we filed it ... does not actually tell us what caused the fire or where it started," PG&E CEO Bill Johnson told reporters Thursday night. "We still at this point do not know what happened."