North Bay fires, 2017
On the night of October 8, 2017, a series of wildfires started across Northern California. CAL FIRE found that PG&E's equipment started most of them, and the CPUC attributes 22 of the 44 deaths to fires started by PG&E facilities. This page covers them together, because their costs were settled together.
- Where
- Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, Yuba, Butte and Nevada counties, among others
- Utility
- PG&E
- Record
- Found by investigators
- Started on
- More than one kind
- Acres burned
- Not published
- Days to containment
- Not published
- Structures destroyed
- Not published
- Deaths
- 22
Found by investigators
The agency that investigated the fire found that the utility's equipment started it.
CAL FIRE determined that PG&E's electrical facilities ignited all but one of the 15 fires in the CPUC's investigation, the CPUC wrote in 2020. The Tubbs Fire, the deadliest that October, was not PG&E's.
Sources: Decision Different of Commissioner Rechtschaffen, I.19-06-015 (PG&E wildfire penalties); Safety and Enforcement Division report on the October 2017 fire siege; San Jose Inside
More than one kind
Several fires or ignitions, on different kinds of line. The record says which.
Mostly PG&E 12 kV distribution lines. One of the Redwood Fire's two ignitions was a 60 kV transmission conductor.
The fires
- How many
The CPUC's safety staff investigated 17 fires that involved PG&E facilities, and kept its reports on two of them, Lobo and McCourtney, confidential. The CPUC's penalty case covered the other 15.
Sources: Safety and Enforcement Division report on the October 2017 fire siege; Decision Different of Commissioner Rechtschaffen, I.19-06-015 (PG&E wildfire penalties)
- Redwood (Mendocino County)
36,523 acres. 543 structures destroyed by CAL FIRE's count, 546 by the CPUC staff's. Nine people killed. It started in two places when trees or parts of trees fell onto PG&E lines; at one, a valley oak branch fell onto a 60 kV transmission conductor.
Sources: The Mendocino Voice; California Public Utilities Commission
- Atlas (Napa County)
51,624 acres. The CPUC staff counts 120 structures destroyed and 783 damaged; CAL FIRE's release says 783 destroyed. Six people killed. Trees and a branch fell onto PG&E 12 kV conductors at two ignition points.
Sources: California Public Utilities Commission; The Mendocino Voice
- Cascade (Yuba County)
9,989 acres, 264 structures destroyed and four people killed. CAL FIRE found the cause was "line slap" on a PG&E power line.
Sources: CAL FIRE, via Tellus Venture Associates; California Public Utilities Commission
- Nuns (Sonoma and Napa counties)
Combined with five other fires, 56,556 acres and 1,527 structures damaged or destroyed, with three deaths, by the CPUC staff's count. The sources disagree on its cause: CAL FIRE's June 2018 release says the broken top of a tree touched a power line, and the district attorneys' 2019 release says CAL FIRE found PG&E's equipment did not cause it.
Sources: California Public Utilities Commission; The Mendocino Voice; Healdsburg Tribune
- Smaller fires
Among them: Sulphur in Lake County, 2,207 acres and 162 structures, where a PG&E pole failed; and Pocket in Sonoma County, about 17,357 acres.
Sources: The Mendocino Voice; California Public Utilities Commission
- The Tubbs Fire
Not PG&E's. CAL FIRE found that a private electrical system next to a home caused it, and the CPUC's staff found no violation by PG&E. It burned 36,807 acres, destroyed 5,636 structures and killed 22 people.
Sources: San Jose Inside; California Public Utilities Commission
- Sonoma County homes
The 2017 fires, Tubbs included, destroyed 5,334 homes in Sonoma County. A little over two and a half years later the county was on track to rebuild 68 percent of them.
Source: The Press Democrat
The cause
- Shutoffs
PG&E had no procedures or policies to shut off power ahead of fire weather at the time.
- Rule violations
The CPUC's safety staff found 33 violations of General Order 95 and Resolution E-4184 in the 2017 fires.
- Criminal case
The district attorneys of Sonoma, Napa, Humboldt and Lake counties announced on March 12, 2019 that they would file no charges, finding insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that PG&E acted with reckless disregard for human life.
Source: Healdsburg Tribune
What it cost
- Fire Victim Trust
PG&E's bankruptcy plan settled fire victims' claims for the 2015 Butte, 2017 North Bay and 2018 Camp fires together, with an aggregate $13.5 billion in value. It is not broken out by fire.
Sources: PG&E Corporation, filed with the SEC; Fire Victim Trust
- Paid by the Trust
$13.95 billion paid to claimants and $19.57 billion awarded, for the three fires together, as the Trust reported in October 2026.
Source: Fire Victim Trust
- CPUC penalty
$1.937 billion for PG&E's 2017 and 2018 wildfires together, the largest penalty the CPUC had ever assessed, approved in May 2020: $1.823 billion of wildfire costs PG&E may not charge customers and $114 million for system enhancements and corrective actions. A $200 million fine was also imposed, with payment permanently suspended.
Sources: California Public Utilities Commission; PG&E Corporation, filed with the SEC
- Paid to counties and cities
$415 million to Nevada County, Yuba County and seven other counties and cities, for 2017 fires including Cascade, Lobo and McCourtney.
Source: CBS Sacramento
- Insured losses
$10,019,953,201 for all the October 2017 wildfires, Tubbs included, as of January 31, 2018. The Department of Insurance does not break out PG&E's fires.
Not published
We looked for these and found no source that publishes them:
- Total acres, structures and days for PG&E's fires alone (the sources give them fire by fire)
- How many households never returned
- Insured losses for PG&E's fires alone