On the most recent episode of the Emmy-award winning HBO comedy show "Last Week Tonight," host John Oliver – as part of a segment exploring the electrical power grid – eviscerated PG&E over its role in sparking the 2018 Camp Fire.
Monday marked the three-year anniversary of the blaze, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
Last year, PG&E acknowledged they were responsible for igniting the fire, which killed 84 people and scorched 150,000 acres of Butte County in 2018.
Oliver used the Camp Fire as an example of the dangerous consequences that can result from the archaic equipment used by power companies.
The comedian explained that circumstances in Butte County leading up to the horrific inferno – a devastating drought due to climate change coupled with over 50 year-old power lines – made the region a "tinder box."
The show explained how the utility was using almost 100-year metal hooks to hold electrical lines in place. One of those hooks broke, which caused the power line to make contact with a metal tower and sent sparks onto the dehydrated land below, thus sparking the Camp Fire.
"Let that be a lesson to you. You can’t just keep something that old in place, and expect it to keep working forever. PG&E basically took the same approach to their equipment as Democrats did to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And in both cases it didn’t end well," Oliver quipped.
Watch the full segment below, with the portion on PG&E beginning at the 8:30 mark.
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