Blamed for sparking some of the most destructive blazes in California history, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and its parent company, PG&E Corp., reported Thursday that they will take a $2.5 billion charge to cover expected losses from October’s deadly Wine Country wildfires.

And they warned investors that the financial pain may just be beginning.

The damage charge, which will be recorded in the current quarter, is larger than PG&E Corp.’s 2017 profit of $1.66 billion. But it represents just the low end of the utility’s potential losses from the fires, executives said Thursday. The final amount could be much higher.

Homeowners, businesses and local government agencies have filed roughly 200 lawsuits seeking to hold the utility responsible for the fires, which erupted during a powerful windstorm on Oct. 8. Total liability estimates range as high as $15 billion.

Now Playing:

Investigators with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection have traced 16 of the fires back to PG&E’s power lines and equipment. In addition, Cal Fire said the utility may have violated state safety laws in 11 of those cases, potentially exposing PG&E to criminal charges and fines. And Cal Fire still has not released its report on the most devastating of the blazes: the Tubbs Fire, which raged from Calistoga to Santa Rosa and killed 24 people.

Given the uncertainties, PG&E Corp. executives said Thursday they could not come up with an estimate for how high the liability could soar.

“At this point, we are unable to reasonably estimate a high end of the range,” said Jason Wells, PG&E Corp.’s chief financial officer, on a conference call with Wall Street analysts. “There are many unknowns.”

State lawmakers have said that in private, PG&E lobbyists suggest that the financial fallout from the fires could bankrupt the utility, although the company’s executives have steered clear of saying so in public. The utility filed for bankruptcy once before, at the height of the state’s 2000-01 electricity crisis.

“You have to realize that many of the lawmakers here in California vividly remember the energy crisis, and what came as a result of that, so the topic does come up periodically in our conversations,” PG&E Corp. CEO Geisha Williams acknowledged Thursday, on the same conference call.

Under a legal doctrine known as inverse condemnation, California utilities can be held liable for financial losses from fires caused by their equipment, even if the companies followed all the state’s safety regulations.

PG&E and the state’s other utility companies have been pushing for legislation to change that, so far without success. Williams said that Cal Fire’s investigative reports, released in batches during the last month, have hurt PG&E’s efforts in Sacramento.

“I’ll be upfront: We do acknowledge that things will likely be more difficult for us on the legislative front,” she said.

Although PG&E will take the $2.5 billion hit on its next earnings report, no actual cash will change hands as a result — at least not now. Resolution of the lawsuits will probably take years, Williams said.

And while PG&E will ask its regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission for permission to pass along any lawsuit costs to the utility’s customers, there is no guarantee that the commission will agree. In November, the commission rejected a request from San Diego Gas and Electric Co. to make its customers pay $379 million in wildfire lawsuit costs not covered by the utility’s liability insurance.

PG&E’s announcement, made before the start of the trading day, did not weigh down the company’s stock, which rose 1.32 percent Thursday to close at $40.53.

“The market has been pricing in a substantially higher liability than the initial charge that PG&E took today, so perhaps there’s some relief, albeit small,” said Travis Miller, director of utilities research at the Morningstar market research firm. “We expect that more charges will come.”

PG&E said Thursday that its damage charge does not include potential liability arising from the Tubbs Fire, which devastated entire neighborhoods in Santa Rosa. The charge also does not include liability for the Atlas Fire in Napa County, even though Cal Fire investigators said that blaze started with a PG&E power line. The company has not revealed what specific evidence leads it to believe it won’t be held liable for damage from that blaze.

“In Atlas, Cal Fire mentioned there’s multiple ignition points,” said John Simon, PG&E general counsel. “Based on what we know today, we haven’t reached a conclusion that a loss on Atlas is probable. That could change, but that’s where we are now.”

The damage charge also does not include potential fines PG&E may face. The utility was fined $1.6 billion by state regulators over the fatal 2010 San Bruno gas-pipeline explosion, which also led to a felony conviction by a federal court jury.

Cal Fire has not released to the utility or the public its investigative reports on the 11 fires in which the agency suspects PG&E may have broken the law. Company executives said Thursday they still don’t know what evidence Cal Fire may have for that conclusion. Nor do they know when Cal Fire may release its findings on the Tubbs Fire.

“We continue to wait, just like everyone else,” Williams said.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF