[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

The current rumor investigation is that high winds caused old PG&E power lines to spark.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7553691-181/pge-slowed-fire-risk-mapping-of?ref=most&artslide=0

Two days before the deadliest outbreak of wildfires in California history, PG&E and other utilities won the latest in a long series of delays to map where power lines pose the greatest wildfire risk, a report said Sunday. For the better part of a decade, California’s utilities have helped to stall the state’s effort to map where their power lines present the highest risk for wildfires, an initiative that critics say could have forced PG&E to strengthen power poles and bolster maintenance efforts before this month’s deadly North Bay fires. ....
Within the first 90 minutes of the fires in Sonoma and Napa counties, firefighters received reports of at least 10 blown transformers or downed power lines at the same time they were called out to battle 19 structure and vegetation fires.
PG&E has acknowledged that some of its lines and poles went down that first night of the fires, citing drought-ravaged trees and what it insisted was a “historic wind event.” But the Bay Area News Group found that the winds when the fires were first reported were roughly half the speed that power poles and lines are required by law to withstand.

As I stated in a previous post; what a mess! The Stornetta Dairy was a landmark and I know some of the family members; one was a Napa cop. Saw some smoke along a ridge line earlier this AM while driving a sailboat up the Napa River from Vallejo to the Napa marina for a haul-out. The local Cal Fire tell me there still some minor stuff but its pretty well contained.... for now. One of my techs in Windsor is housing his inlaws who lost their home in the Geyserville Fire; and I've met several locals who lost everything. They are remarkably calm.