Right, but it'd be a fire that PG&E aren't responsible for starting. This is the outcome of threatening to enforce responsibility on PG&E for fires caused by th

Right, but it'd be a fire that PG&E aren't responsible for starting. This is the outcome of threatening to enforce responsibility on PG&E for fires caused by their lines. Not to say this is the way it had to go, the alternative I see a lot of people proposing is that some level of additional investment in lines maintenance/clearing would have allowed PG&E to safely continue supplying power through the dry season. What I don't see there though is any consideration as to whether that made financial sense for the company. Given that anything other than a naive view of the world tells us that a private corporation's focus will be it's liabilities and bottom line, it's hard to see (admittedly from the huge distance at which I stand) what other way this could have gone.