Industries
![Katherine Blunt - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_katherine_blunt.jpg)
California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--and What It Means for America's Power Grid
A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California's largest utility company that led to countless wildfires - including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise - and the human cost of infrastructure failure
Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart-unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which Pacific Gas and Electric endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. As PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked-until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history.
Beginning with PG&E's public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E's shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces that shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas.
California Burning is a deeply reported, character-driven narrative, the story of a disaster expanding into a much bigger exploration of accountability. It's an American tragedy that serves as a cautionary tale for utilities across the nation-especially as climate change makes aging infrastructure more vulnerable, with potentially fatal consequences.
Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart-unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which Pacific Gas and Electric endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. As PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked-until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history.
Beginning with PG&E's public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E's shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces that shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas.
California Burning is a deeply reported, character-driven narrative, the story of a disaster expanding into a much bigger exploration of accountability. It's an American tragedy that serves as a cautionary tale for utilities across the nation-especially as climate change makes aging infrastructure more vulnerable, with potentially fatal consequences.
Editorial Reviews
"[An] intensely researched, deeply unsettling chronicle . . . Blunt delivers detailed accounts of complex, ongoing political, business, and courtroom maneuvers that would overwhelm readers if not for her abundant journalistic skills. . . A compelling and heart-wrenching study."
-Kirkus Reviews
"Blunt's book is not a technical tome but a drama, a human tragedy, loaded with fascinating characters and tales of death and destruction, incompetence and chicanery, malfeasance and greed. Any detail necessary to understand the electric grid and how it works is woven seamlessly and clearly through the narrative."
-LA Times
"Diligent reporting and a clear focus make this a must-read for anyone interested in the future of energy."
-Publishers Weekly
"Copiously researched . . . Only a careful excavation such as Blunt's can chart the thin course between wrongdoing, simple incompetence, poor governance, and bad luck."
-Science Magazine
"A portrait of a state in crisis . . . Blunt is a thorough reporter and a lucid writer. She makes the struggle to supply California with power on a warming planet clear and compelling."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"This urgent and compelling book is a wild tale of old-school corporate malfeasance colliding with the scary new realities of climate change, a story that only grows more important with each passing dry season. The cast of characters-including feckless corporate managers, criminal commodity traders, and crusading public prosecutors-seems straight out of a Hollywood script. But this story is all too real, and its implications matter to everyone. This is literally the story of who controls power in America, and how they have misused it."
-Christopher Leonard, New York Times bestselling author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money
"California Burning is more than an entertaining and important depiction of the fall of a key American company. It's an examination of how unprepared we are for the dangers of climate change and how unwilling we are to invest in keeping critical systems safe as we transition to cleaner energy."
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-Kirkus Reviews
"Blunt's book is not a technical tome but a drama, a human tragedy, loaded with fascinating characters and tales of death and destruction, incompetence and chicanery, malfeasance and greed. Any detail necessary to understand the electric grid and how it works is woven seamlessly and clearly through the narrative."
-LA Times
"Diligent reporting and a clear focus make this a must-read for anyone interested in the future of energy."
-Publishers Weekly
"Copiously researched . . . Only a careful excavation such as Blunt's can chart the thin course between wrongdoing, simple incompetence, poor governance, and bad luck."
-Science Magazine
"A portrait of a state in crisis . . . Blunt is a thorough reporter and a lucid writer. She makes the struggle to supply California with power on a warming planet clear and compelling."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"This urgent and compelling book is a wild tale of old-school corporate malfeasance colliding with the scary new realities of climate change, a story that only grows more important with each passing dry season. The cast of characters-including feckless corporate managers, criminal commodity traders, and crusading public prosecutors-seems straight out of a Hollywood script. But this story is all too real, and its implications matter to everyone. This is literally the story of who controls power in America, and how they have misused it."
-Christopher Leonard, New York Times bestselling author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money
"California Burning is more than an entertaining and important depiction of the fall of a key American company. It's an examination of how unprepared we are for the dangers of climate change and how unwilling we are to invest in keeping critical systems safe as we transition to cleaner energy."
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Readers Top Reviews
John C. Gardner
Interest in the Paradise disaster (Camp Fire) led me to this book, and I’m glad it did. An outstanding book focusing on PG&E and revealing internal internal drivers and external forces contributing to its truly dismal performance and impact on the state. I seemed to learn something new on every page! Essential reading for residents of all states, not just Californians with its utilities provided by private companies subject to state supervision (mainly via the California Public Utilities Commission, which may now be stepping up to providing better oversight and auditing).
Todd
Pacific Gas and Electric reminds me of a cross between Jack Welch's greed with profit and MBAs before everything else and Boeing's complete ineptitude around safety causing the 787 Max crashes. Maybe one of the worse run companies ever. One of the big fires was caused by a 1920's part breaking. I don't know what leaders would keep giving out dividends when their equipment started over 1500 fires in a few short years. They should have focused on maintaining their equipment. It's only a matter of time to disaster. I'm glad the author put this information out there. Companies need to put safety first. Companies need to focus on their customers and not profits. Companies need to quit cutting experienced people and think they can replace them with MBAs. Experience and knowledge matter. The book does also point out the hurt that California is in and will continue to be in with droughts and an aging electrical grid. I'm not sure California was really built to handle all the people it presently has. The story was pretty predictable in you knew the leaders would continue to fail at handling their responsibilities and being accountable but I'm glad this story is out there as a cautionary tale of what not to do.
Geoffrey K. Mitchell
A great book that uncovers major “unintended consequences” of California’s mandated climate control legislation and regulatory agency electric energy supply source policies on the state’s utility delivery systems, customer rates and economy.
Warren P. Weitzel
Ms Blunt wrote a powerful and concise history of the troubles facing PG&E. She gave a balanced report on how the various entities affected PG&Es troubles. She avoided getting bogged down in the heavy details of such an undertaking, and for the lay reader she laid out the history in a succinct and clear message. As a long-time shareholder, I appreciated having the facts and accountability presented in a fair and unbiased manner. PG&E certainly bares a lot of the blame, but so does the State of California and its governmental leaders. An excellent read for anyone in the position of management or leadership. Excellent job Ms. Blunt. W. Weitzel S.J. CA.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One: Indictment
A brilliant flash broke the morning darkness on November 8, 2018, as strong winds pummeled a PG&E power line scaling the Sierra Nevada ninety miles north of Sacramento. A worn hook hanging from a century-old transmission tower broke clean, dropping a high-voltage wire that spit electricity just before sunrise. A shower of sparks set dry brush aflame.
PG&E recorded an outage on the line at 6:15 a.m. Five minutes later, one of the company's employees noticed a fire under the tower as he drove east on State Route 70, a remote two-lane road running through a steep river canyon that funnels mountain winds down to the valley below. Cell phone out of range, he radioed nearby colleagues, telling them to call 911.
The message reached the local fire captain at 6:29 a.m. He had risen early that morning, roused from sleep by the sound of pine needles pelting the roof of Fire Station 36. The two-engine outpost, tucked along State Route 70 at the mouth of the canyon, was clocking wind speeds as fast as fifty-two miles per hour. The call came as the captain was making breakfast for his small crew. It was already too late. Within fifteen minutes, both engines arrived across the river from the makings of a firestorm. There was no way to get ahead of it. The transmission tower, perched high along a steep, gravelly access route called Camp Creek Road, was almost completely inaccessible by fire engine. The crew struggled to stand upright as the winds whipped the flames. They were spreading with staggering speed. The captain radioed dispatchers for backup.
"This has the potential of a major incident," he said.
Within an hour, the fire had spread seven miles, burning through the small mountain communities of Pulga and Concow to arrive at the outskirts of Paradise, a tight-knit town of nearly twenty-seven thousand people nestled in the Sierra foothills. Residents awoke to emergency evacuation orders as softball-sized embers collided with dead trees. The fire was entirely out of control. At its fastest, it engulfed eighty football fields a minute, by some estimates. The tortured evacuation process began as thick black smoke took on a hellish orange hue. Escape routes became choke points, lines of cars inching along melting asphalt.
Dozens of people were left behind, unable to escape for reasons that made their gruesome deaths even more tragic. Many were in their seventies and eighties. One man had only just gotten his wheelchair out the front door. Another abandoned his wheelchair and tried to drag himself along the ground. A couple in their sunset years died together in their recliners, holding two dogs and two cats.
The fire overtook the town within hours. At noon, one of PG&E's first responders, called a troubleman, arrived at the ignition point in a helicopter. A regional supervisor had ordered emergency air patrol of the transmission tower in response to the early morning outage. The helicopter arrived to hover at a tall steel structure that, under normal circumstances, scarcely elicited anyone's attention. It had stood there for decades, becoming one with its surroundings, until the day it failed.
If you think about the grid as a network of roads, transmission lines are like highways, built to carry large amounts of electricity over long distances. They pick up electrons at power plants and channel them through thick, heavy wires held aloft by steel towers as tall as fifteen stories. The wires connect to substations, or off-ramps, where the power is reduced to lower voltages and distributed to homes and businesses through networks of smaller wires akin to local streets.
Transmission lines are subject to a cardinal rule. The wires must be kept away from one another as well as from the towers that support them. If the space in between them narrows too much, electricity can jump from wire to wire, or wire to tower, in what's known as an arc, a lightning-like bolt hot enough to melt metal and send sparks flying. To reduce that risk, the wires are suspended from strings of insulator discs hooked to the T-shaped arms of their towers.
Peering out of the helicopter, the troubleman saw an insulator string dangling. A hook about the width of a fist had broken nearly in half, dropping the insulator and the wire it held. An arc of electricity surged from the wire as it fell, scorching the tower in a blast of molten steel and aluminum.
The Camp Fire, named for the road near its place of origin, burned for seventeen days, destroying more than one hundred fifty thousand acres and nearly nineteen thousand structures, most of them homes. It didn't take long for investigators with the California Department of Forestry a...
A brilliant flash broke the morning darkness on November 8, 2018, as strong winds pummeled a PG&E power line scaling the Sierra Nevada ninety miles north of Sacramento. A worn hook hanging from a century-old transmission tower broke clean, dropping a high-voltage wire that spit electricity just before sunrise. A shower of sparks set dry brush aflame.
PG&E recorded an outage on the line at 6:15 a.m. Five minutes later, one of the company's employees noticed a fire under the tower as he drove east on State Route 70, a remote two-lane road running through a steep river canyon that funnels mountain winds down to the valley below. Cell phone out of range, he radioed nearby colleagues, telling them to call 911.
The message reached the local fire captain at 6:29 a.m. He had risen early that morning, roused from sleep by the sound of pine needles pelting the roof of Fire Station 36. The two-engine outpost, tucked along State Route 70 at the mouth of the canyon, was clocking wind speeds as fast as fifty-two miles per hour. The call came as the captain was making breakfast for his small crew. It was already too late. Within fifteen minutes, both engines arrived across the river from the makings of a firestorm. There was no way to get ahead of it. The transmission tower, perched high along a steep, gravelly access route called Camp Creek Road, was almost completely inaccessible by fire engine. The crew struggled to stand upright as the winds whipped the flames. They were spreading with staggering speed. The captain radioed dispatchers for backup.
"This has the potential of a major incident," he said.
Within an hour, the fire had spread seven miles, burning through the small mountain communities of Pulga and Concow to arrive at the outskirts of Paradise, a tight-knit town of nearly twenty-seven thousand people nestled in the Sierra foothills. Residents awoke to emergency evacuation orders as softball-sized embers collided with dead trees. The fire was entirely out of control. At its fastest, it engulfed eighty football fields a minute, by some estimates. The tortured evacuation process began as thick black smoke took on a hellish orange hue. Escape routes became choke points, lines of cars inching along melting asphalt.
Dozens of people were left behind, unable to escape for reasons that made their gruesome deaths even more tragic. Many were in their seventies and eighties. One man had only just gotten his wheelchair out the front door. Another abandoned his wheelchair and tried to drag himself along the ground. A couple in their sunset years died together in their recliners, holding two dogs and two cats.
The fire overtook the town within hours. At noon, one of PG&E's first responders, called a troubleman, arrived at the ignition point in a helicopter. A regional supervisor had ordered emergency air patrol of the transmission tower in response to the early morning outage. The helicopter arrived to hover at a tall steel structure that, under normal circumstances, scarcely elicited anyone's attention. It had stood there for decades, becoming one with its surroundings, until the day it failed.
If you think about the grid as a network of roads, transmission lines are like highways, built to carry large amounts of electricity over long distances. They pick up electrons at power plants and channel them through thick, heavy wires held aloft by steel towers as tall as fifteen stories. The wires connect to substations, or off-ramps, where the power is reduced to lower voltages and distributed to homes and businesses through networks of smaller wires akin to local streets.
Transmission lines are subject to a cardinal rule. The wires must be kept away from one another as well as from the towers that support them. If the space in between them narrows too much, electricity can jump from wire to wire, or wire to tower, in what's known as an arc, a lightning-like bolt hot enough to melt metal and send sparks flying. To reduce that risk, the wires are suspended from strings of insulator discs hooked to the T-shaped arms of their towers.
Peering out of the helicopter, the troubleman saw an insulator string dangling. A hook about the width of a fist had broken nearly in half, dropping the insulator and the wire it held. An arc of electricity surged from the wire as it fell, scorching the tower in a blast of molten steel and aluminum.
The Camp Fire, named for the road near its place of origin, burned for seventeen days, destroying more than one hundred fifty thousand acres and nearly nineteen thousand structures, most of them homes. It didn't take long for investigators with the California Department of Forestry a...
