(Bloomberg) -- PG&E Corp. may be poised for further volatility Monday after disclosing a second power-line failure on the morning that California’s deadliest fire began.
A circuit in Concow, Butte County, failed at about 6:45 a.m. on Nov. 8, the utility said Friday in a filing to the state’s Public Utilities Commission. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, collected equipment on that circuit and “has secured a location near PG&E facilities,” the company said.
“The information provided in the report is preliminary, and there has been no determination on the cause,” PG&E said in a statement Friday.
At least 76 people have died in the Camp Fire, which is 60 percent contained. More than 149,000 acres have been scorched and close to 10,000 homes were destroyed.
San Francisco-based PG&E has filed two incident reports since the fire began -- and seen about half its market value, roughly $12 billion, vanish in little more than a week. It previously told state regulators that aerial inspection found damage to a transmission tower near Pulga, which is east of Concow.
“The more that investors hear about an incident report -- some event that may be connected -- the more concerned they might get,” Kit Konolige, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said Sunday in an interview.
The latest revelation came amid mounting scrutiny of PG&E, California’s biggest utility. Earlier on Friday, the president of the California Public Utilities Commission singled out PG&E’s board as an impediment to reform -- and said he isn’t ruling out carving up the company as officials launch a deep corporate review.
Cal Fire revealed that investigators had identified a second potential origin point for the Camp Fire. Scott McLean, a Cal Fire spokesman, declined in an interview Sunday to reveal the location of that potential ignition point.
“The investigation is going to be more than likely a lengthy one,” he said.
--With assistance from Mark Chediak and David R. Baker.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Eckhouse in New York at beckhouse@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Ryan at jryan173@bloomberg.net, Dan Reichl, Kevin Miller
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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