A federal judge in California says that uninsulated power conductors owned by PG&E were the cause of several wildfires that state agencies battled across California since 2017.

One has to be careful here because Cali enviro-nuts are out to destroy fossil fuel industries.

NBC News reports that U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup found that equipment from utility company Pacific Gas and Electric was the cause of some wildfires due to tree limbs and other debris knocking uninsulated power conductors together.

Notice tree limbs and debris are mentioned. The aren’t being cleared out. Typically, wires aren’t insulated. We contend the cleanup and management is key.

It isn’t solely on the gas and electric company. Trump was right when he talked about their poor forest management. Officials don’t clear out the debris and dead trees in California. That is partly to blame for the fires.

“The Court tentatively finds that the single most recurring cause of the large 2017 and 2018 wildfires attributable to PG&E’s equipment has been the susceptibility of PG&E’s distribution lines to trees or limbs falling onto them during high-wind events,” Allsup’s order reads, according to NBC.

“The power conductors are almost always uninsulated. When the conductors are pushed together by falling trees or limbs, electrical sparks drop into the vegetation below. During the wildfire season when the vegetation is dry, these electrical sparks pose an extreme danger of igniting a wildfire,” he added.

They need to clear out the dead wood and brush.

THE COMPANY KNEW THEY WERE LIABLE

The gas and electric company knew of problems and allegedly didn’t take the proper steps.

The LA Times reported that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. continued to commit pipeline safety violations in the years after a gas explosion that killed eight people in the Bay Area suburb of San Bruno, regulators said Friday. They falsified safety records. That’s bad if true.

The NY Times reported that as California’s deadliest wildfire raged in November, some of the state’s top power company officials and a dozen legislators lobbied for protection in Hawaii. They were at an annual retreat at the Fairmont Kea Lani resort on Maui. In the course of four days, they discussed wildfires — and how much responsibility the utilities deserve for the devastation if any. That isn’t the horror the Times wants to make out of it. The Times doesn’t like fossil fuels either.

According to Fox News, officials at Northern California utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. could face murder or manslaughter charges if found negligent for any recent wildfires.

SHOCKER! IT WASN’T CLIMATE CHANGE

Now that we have potential causes — allegedly, will former governor Jerry Brown and current Governor Gavin Newsom take back their false and unverified claims that climate change caused the horrendous California fires that left death and destruction?

Brown said the “predictions that I see, the more serious predictions of warming and fires to occur later in the century, 2040 or 2050, they’re now occurring in real time.”

“You can expect that — unfortunately — to continue intensifying in California and throughout the Southwest,” Brown said.

That may be so, way into the future or not, but he didn’t take sufficient care over the here-and-now and what we can control.

POOR FOREST MANAGEMENT

Fire experts blame the rising toll on a number of factors, including poor forest management, mass development of the state’s wildlands and a hotter, drier climate. That is what the President said and was mocked for saying.

Donald Trump blamed California’s wildfires on mismanagement of forests.

Fox News asked Trump if he thought climate change had contributed to California’s wildfires. Trump said: “Maybe it contributes a little bit. The big problem we have is management.”

In an interview, Trump added: “You need management,” and then said: “I’m not saying that in a negative way, a positive I’m just saying the facts.”

Retired Fish & Wildlife biologist Jim Beers addressed that very issue when the Alaska wildfires were out of control in 2015.

Instead of dealing with the actual issues of poor forest management, the enviros go off into irrelevant, unconnected issues of climate change. That is where the money and efforts go — to no avail.

Mr. Beers wrote: The fires in Alaska and the western United States are entirely due to fire fuel accumulation on government land and landscapes inhospitable to access, fuel management or firefighting:

This is the danger in politicizing everything.

The poor government policies won’t change and no politician will be held accountable. They will be free to bloviate.