In the early days of the 2019 wildfire season last month, a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. transformer near Mount Tamalpais failed, starting a quarter-acre brush fire. Two weeks later, another brush fire that swelled to more than 2,500 acres in southern Monterey County was linked to PG&E power lines.

No homes were damaged or people harmed, unlike in the deadly wildfires of 2017 and 2018 that were blamed on PG&E. But for California’s largest utility the two small blazes represent a potentially ominous start to the fire season, as it desperately tries to prevent causing any more disasters like the ones that led it to file for bankruptcy protection in January.

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“The main way that I am going to feel safer this year is not because PG&E has strung up some covered conductor or trimmed the trees back more,” said Michael Wara, the director of Stanford University’s energy policy program. “It’s because they demonstrate a willingness to turn the power off, even though it’s going to cost them politically and, potentially, financially.”

“I’ll take inconvenience over death,” he said.