AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File
- Pacific Gas and Electric was charged on Friday with manslaughter and other crimes.
- It follows a 2020 Northern California blaze started by alleged neglected equipment, AP reported.
- Four people were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed.
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Pacific Gas and Electric was charged on Friday with manslaughter and other crimes following a Northern California blaze last year that prosecutors allege was started by neglected equipment, the Associated Press reported.
Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett announced 31 charges against the nation's largest utility company, including 11 felonies.
State prosecutors said the September 2020 fire began after a pine tree fell on a PG&E transmission line and scorched the communities in the Sierra Nevada, the report said. The blaze quickly grew out of control, killing four people and incinerating hundreds of homes.
California's Shasta and Tehama counties sued PG&E alleging negligence, and said the company didn't remove the tree, even though it had been marked to be taken down two years earlier, the Associated Press reported.
PG&E did not immediately respond to a request from Insider for comment.
It's not the first time in recent years that the company has found itself in serious trouble.
Last year, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter from a 2018 blaze sparked by a neglected electrical grid.
That fire destroyed the town of Paradise, along with 10,000 homes, the report said, leading to hundreds of lawsuits and causing the company to file for bankruptcy protection in 2019.
PG&E already faced charges in April from the Sonoma County district attorney's office after a 2019 fire that displaced 200,000 people, according to the Associated Press. It's also on criminal probation after a 2010 pipeline explosion near San Francisco that killed eight people.