Big Texas Blaze Shows Power-Line Fires Are Widespread Threat (1)

Massive wildfires sparked by power lines used to be a California problem, one many utility executives considered safely confined to the Golden State. No more.

Texas officials on Thursday blamed the state’s largest-ever fire on electrical lines sparking in dry brush, fed by blasting winds into a million-acre inferno. The same combination of high winds, power lines and dry grass last year may have been responsible for razing the seaside town of Lahaina on Maui, a place once considered too lush to burn. Fast-moving fires blamed on utility equipment leveled homes in Colorado in 2021 and Oregon in 2020.

Across a ...