California: Looking for culprits in the fires

While strong fires continue to burn in California, the balance of this phenomenon is the deadliest in California’s history, and the search for culprits had begun after over 10 days of fires.

While strong fires continue to burn in California, the balance of this phenomenon is the deadliest in California’s history, and the search for culprits had begun after over 10 days of fires.

The news that just before the fire, known as Camp Fire, started in the northern county of Bute, the largest electricity company in the State, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG & E) detected a "problem" in one of its high voltage lines next to the site where the fire started has triggered speculation about the liability of this company.

A credible suspicion born from the fact that the company reported the ‘problem’ to the competent authorities just before the fire started. With the investigation still open, the possible civil and material liabilities for the company would be incalculable and could lead to bankruptcy, so that its shares immediately and abruptly dropped on the New York Stock Exchange.

However, the quick statements by Michael Picker, President of the Public Services Commission of California, that "companies should enjoy stability and financial support to have the money they need at this time", have been interpreted in Wall Street as a guarantee of a financial "rescue" by the authorities, something which adds suspicion as to the responsibility of the energy company. Statements which meant the actions recovered in a few hours 40% of its value.

The possibility of carrying out a financial rescue of a private company with public money, to safeguard the interests of its shareholders, would be a clear contradiction with the extreme neoliberalism that is practiced in the US, and that this same country preaches for the rest of the world.

But beyond that, specialists and journalists have refrained from underlining that the fundamental cause of similar situations is based on a common practice among the large private operators of public services, which maintain the costly and essential investments in the renovation and maintenance of infrastructures to the minimum, in order to optimize the short-term benefits.

If confirmed in the next few days the "responsibility" of PG & E, the provisional damages to be assumed would be much more than the already high price of 68 people dead, 631 missing, 8,650 buildings destroyed and 57,500 hectares burned.

At the same time that the first fire devastated the north of California, this same State underwent another similar catastrophe, the denominated Woolsey Fire that affected the exclusive residential zones of Malibu and Calabasas, with a provisional result of 3 deceased people and almost 40,000 carbonized hectares.