PG&E says it contacted resident about shut-off power line

A utility accused in a lawsuit of igniting California's deadliest and most destructive wildfire said it contacted a customer about a power line on her property but that sparks were not part of the discussion.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said it had been in touch with Betsy Ann Cowley to inform her about future planned work on a power line that had been shut down.

Cowley has said the utility emailed her last Wednesday, a day before the blaze ignited, about getting access to her property in the tiny private resort town of Pulga to work on some lines. Cowley said the utility had told her they had problems with sparks.

Members of the California Army National Guard search a property for human remains at a home burned in the Camp fire, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP PhotoJohn Locher)

"We have not seen anything that includes a discussion with the customer in question about 'sparks' and PG&E infrastructure," PG&E spokesman Paul Doherty said in an emailed statement Tuesday evening.

The cause of the fire that killed at least 48 people and largely destroyed the town of Paradise is still under investigation, but PG&E has come under scrutiny.

Shares of the utility plunged more than 20 percent in Wednesday trading after it said in a regulatory filing that it could face a significant financial hit if its equipment is found to be the cause of the blaze.

Fire investigators have blamed PG&E equipment for 12 wildfires in Northern California wine country last fall, including two that killed a total of 15 people. It's also facing dozens of lawsuits stemming from those fires.

People whose homes were destroyed in the recent blaze sued PG&E on Tuesday, accusing it of negligence for failing to properly inspect and manage its power lines and blaming it for the fire.

In a filing to state regulators, the utility said it had detected an outage on an electrical transmission line minutes before and close to where the blaze broke out. It said a subsequent aerial inspection detected damage to a transmission tower on the line.

PG&E said that line is different from the one on Cowley's property but did not offer details on the relationship or the distance between the two.

"Based on our initial review, the email correspondence with the customer in question was about future planned work on a different transmission line in the area," Doherty said Tuesday. "That line had previously been de-energized and was not operational when the Camp Fire started."

He said he was trying to get answers to requests for details about why and when it was disconnected from the power supply or how many lines go through the area.

The area where state firefighting officials says the blaze started appears to be on or adjacent to Cowley's property. State fire investigators have blocked access to the area, which is considered a crime scene.

BEIRUT (AP) — The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.

The repatriation was the largest Washington has carried out from the camps to date, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Five of the 11 citizens brought back were children, and one non-U.S. citizen child -- the 9-year-old sibling of one of the other children -- was also brought with them.

As part of the same operation, the U.S. facilitated the repatriation of 11 other camp residents, eight of them children, to Canada, the Netherlands and Finland, the statement said.

Although the pace of repatriations has picked up -- neighboring Iraq recently returned hundreds of its citizens -- many countries remain reluctant to bring back citizens from the al Hol and al Roj camps, which now hold about 30,000 people from more than 60 countries, most of them children.

The camps are run by local authorities affiliated with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF and its allies, including U.S.-led coalition forces, defeated the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019, ending its self-proclaimed Islamic “caliphate” that had ruled over a large swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria.

Human rights groups have regularly reported on what they describe as inhumane living conditions and abuses in the camps and in detention centers where suspected IS members are housed.

“The only durable solution to the humanitarian and security crisis” in the facilities “is for countries to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and where appropriate, ensure accountability for wrongdoing,” Blinken said in the statement.

FILE - Kurdish forces patrol al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group in Hasakeh province, Syria, on April 19, 2023. The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

FILE - Women shop in the marketplace at al-Hol camp, home to families of Islamic State fighters, in Hasakeh province, Syria, on March 31, 2019. The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)