Despite years of fuel reduction funded by special fees , numerous wildfires ravaged wildland-urban communities . Investigations found that PG&E powerline failures during high winds caused many of the fires . Utilities have the power to disable power lines , and PG&E shut off power following the 2017 North Bay fires . A policy it adopted subsequent to the North Bay fires precluded shutting off lines carrying more than 115kV due to the number of customers who would be negatively impacted by such a shutdown
2017 North Bay fires
October 2017 Northern California wildfires
Camp Fire (2018)