I think you might also be underestimating the scale of the power infrastructure in CA. The hydro etc. power generators in the north of the state are located in extremely remote areas.
My brother was a consulting engineer for PG&E in Northern CA, on a lot of their Hydropower infrastructure - most of the generation sites were only accessible by humans with helicopter flights, or 2-3 hr drives on poorly maintained roads. The transmission lines are not really accessible except by helicopter survey.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNU_Lightning_Complex_fires
To add, basically the last 4 years has been the burnout of a huge swath of forest in this area between the Camp fire, Bear fire, and now the Dixie fire, not to mention the many “small” fires that were caught/didn’t get established. The majority of land between highway 32 to the La Porte/Quincy highway has burned. Don’t have a good estimate since I’m on my phone, but 100s of square miles of mostly back country forest. Both the Camp and Bear fires made 10-15 mile runs in one day, and Dixie’s put up massive pyrocumulonimbus pretty much every day this week.
Edit to add: it’s also been incredibly dry, most of June-July has been upper 90s-low 100s, with a few 110+ periods. Humidity has also been extremely low, in the afternoons 8-12%. Even overnight it only recovers up to 40-45%. Higher elevations are cooler, but not so much that it mitigates, so the forest is pretty tinderbox right now. Once it’s lit it’s hard to put out.
> most of the PGE right-of-ways do look like freeways now through the forest, little to no under story growth.
I read the whole thing waiting for a point but there wasn't one. Just a waste of time. We already know the fires are bad, and that isn't relevant to the thread anyways.
Key to remember is that power lines can spark when they're damaged by winds (which can lead to the lines themselves being close enough to the ground for the spark to traverse to the underbrush).
The big high tension towers go through clear-cut rights of way.
The big headache is not burying cable. If there's nothing else in the ground, that's not too hard. It's working around water lines, sewer lines, gas lines, driveways, phone, data, cable TV...
Plus you'd have to do it regularly, not once.
No one is interested in farming alfalfa on 25% slopes with rocks 6” under any topsoil and massive trees to clear before it would even be usable.