Here's why there are 85 pairs of shoes outside a building in downtown San Francisco

Elena Shao / The Chronicle Elena Shao / The Chronicle Photo: Elena Shao / The Chronicle Photo: Elena Shao / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 99 Caption Close Here's why there are 85 pairs of shoes outside a building in downtown San Francisco 1 / 99 Back to Gallery

The 85 pairs of black shoes, each adorned with a rose, lying in a row on the cement in front of the Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. headquarters in downtown San Francisco Friday morning were an arresting sight.

The presentation is part of a protest against the utility company and each pair represents one of the 85 people killed in the 2018 Camp Fire. The deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history destroyed nearly the entire town of Paradise in Butte County and was caused by PG&E power line failures.

Protesters timed the demonstration with the annual PG&E shareholders meeting and held signs reading, "PG&E is burning our homes" and "Why are we trusting a private entity with the safety of our communities, our homes, our lives?"

The San Francisco Chronicle covered the details of the meeting and the group behind the protest.

ALSO: PG&E says it's fixed many major safety risks on lines, poles

Ahead of the meeting, PG&E announced its workers discovered more than 1,000 high-priority safety risks on its transmission lines and distribution poles over several months of inspections and almost all of them have been fixed.

PG&E has been inspecting its equipment in high-risk wildfire areas as part of a wildfire mitigation plan it was required to submit to state regulators. The utility has been blamed for sparking some of California's most destructive wildfires in recent years, and it filed for bankruptcy in January as it faced potentially tens of billions of dollars in liability.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Amy Graff is an SFGATE producer. Email: agraff@sfgate.com