SAN FRANCISCO — Pacific Gas & Electric has told a judge it "strongly disagrees" with a newspaper story that said the utility knew its aging power lines posed a wildfire threat but avoided replacing or repairing them.
PG&E responded Wednesday to the Wall Street Journal report. A judge in San Francisco had ordered the utility to file a "paragraph-by-paragraph" response to the story.
The Journal has reported that PG&E delayed safety work on a power line that sparked a November wildfire that wiped out the Northern California town of Paradise and killed 85 people. It was the deadliest and most destructive fire in state history.
In its rebuttal, PG&E denied that it repeatedly failed to perform necessary upgrades to its transmission lines.