Plenty of urban and suburban areas do this, yes. But that's not where the fires start. They come from areas that are a) dense with sap-oozing pine trees that h

Plenty of urban and suburban areas do this, yes. But that's not where the fires start. They come from areas that are a) dense with sap-oozing pine trees that hunger for a fire to spread their seeds, and b) so remote that maintenance checks can't logistically occur often enough to effectively prevent dangerous situations. As you might imagine, the expense of laying underground power lines to areas like these is way out of proportion to the benefit to residents. A colossal swath of northern and eastern California is forest, and replacing power lines across all of it would be a herculean infrastructure project that PG&E definitely cannot afford.