Bury the power lines. Will cost more than $10M though. But less than we're spending on fire recovery and prevention.
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2019/10/11/...
> But less than we're spending on fire recovery and prevention.
You sure it's less?
The weather here is no longer nearly perfect all year. It looks like we'll be having a month every year where there's so much smoke in the air that you can't go outside.
PG&E was too busy spending its income on cash bonuses, dividends, and stock buybacks. It really is just a matter of money.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/pge-underground-power...
Maintenance also becomes much more expensive, although less frequent maintenance may offset that. Non-maintenance changes, such as adding new service, etc would be much more expensive.
I don't know about California regulations, but in Washington State, the regulator does not allow the utility to spend general funds to underground wires unless it's strictly required; the cost must be assessed to only the customers it benefits, which is fair, but can generate a lot of pushback.
Underground power lines cost $5-10 million per mile and PG&E has ~100,000 miles that would need to be buried. A lot of PG&E's lines are in more rural areas which tend towards the cheaper side of that range, but it's still a ton of money.