LOS ANGELES _ Pacific Gas & Electric has told California regulators that its equipment malfunctioned near two fires that broke out in Contra Costa County on Sunday afternoon amid strong, steady winds.
In two incident reports submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission and posted Monday morning, PG&E reported that its workers found a downed power pole and a broken lashing wire in separate locations in the East Bay suburbs where fires had begun about an hour earlier.
Neither of the fires was tied to the shutdown of the Carquinez Bridge on Sunday, creating dramatic flames and smoke at a gateway to the San Francisco Bay Area.
At about 1:30 p.m. Sunday, officials said two fires broke out on either side of State Route 24, one off Camino Diablo Road and another off Pleasant Hill Road.
According to PG&E's filings, required under state law, the utility discovered downed equipment in both areas hours later.
Part of a tennis club was damaged along with some other buildings, and there was damage to one home.
About 4:45 p.m., a PG&E trouble-shooting employee arrived at Pleasant Hill and Condit Roads in Lafayette and "observed that the lashing wire of a communication cable near the PG&E open wire secondary conductor was broken," the utility said in its incident report. "Contra Costa Fire Department personnel on site communicated to the troubleman that they were looking into contact between the communication lashing wire and PG&E open wire secondary as a potential ignition source."
About an hour later, a PG&E troubleman showed up at the location of the second fire ignition on Camino Diablo Road on the other side of State Route 24, the utility's incident report stated.
"At the location, the Troubleman observed a fallen pole and transformer. Contra Costa Fire Department personnel on site communicated to the Troubleman that they were looking at the transformer as a potential ignition source."
Power was flowing through the lines where the equipment failed and where both fires broke out. Neither of the locations was in high-risk fire zones subject to the precautionary blackouts, PG&E stated.
