(TNS) -  The day before firefighter radio transmissions revealed a malfunctioning PG&E power line may have triggered the state’s most destructive wildfire, a business owner in this tiny town near the Camp Fire’s origin said she received an email from the utility alerting her that workers had to fix a sparking problem on a nearby power line.

In the email received Wednesday, the company said they’d be coming out to work on one of their nearby towers that “were having problems with sparks,” said Betsy Ann Cowley, owner of Pulga, a former abandoned railroad town turned retreat popular with techies.

“This needs to become a class action lawsuit,” the former Oakland resident said.

Just what might have caused the sparking is unclear, but the radio transmissions reviewed by Bay Area News Group and an alert sent to state regulators indicate a transmission line created a hazard about 15 minutes before the blaze was first reported. Firefighters found downed power lines and a fast-moving fire beneath the high-tension wires when they arrived at the fire’s origin about a mile northeast of Pulga, by the dam.

A PG&E spokesman said he was looking into Cowley’s claims.
   
The California Public Utilities Commission launched investigations Monday into California’s two largest utility companies after both PG&E and Southern California Edison Company reported that their electrical infrastructure suffered malfunctions near ground zero of two deadly blazes raging across the north and south of the state.

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