It's a regulated utility so the free market doesn't really come into it, fundamentally regulated rates are set by CPUC. These rates need to go up to allow more

It's a regulated utility so the free market doesn't really come into it, fundamentally regulated rates are set by CPUC. These rates need to go up to allow more a more aggressive vegetation control schedule. Sure, I agree with that, and I agree that individual power consumers should pay for that. However the way I think they should pay is precisely through that rate mechanism. What I do not think is efficient is putting the entire consequential damages of a fire caused by an electrical fault on the utility. That is only an effective mechanism to the extent that the fire damage is preventable by them. While they can reduce the chance of this happening through stepping up vegetation clearance and they probably should, it is not possible to reduce it to zero and given the size of the network there may well be fires every year even in the best possible case. To say in the context of climate change, forestry policy, the location of houses in areas that face these fire risks, and the construction of those houses of flammable materials that PG&E "caused" this fire and the previous ones and should therefore bear the damages seems strange to me.