PG&E has an awkward new PR campaign with ads airing in NorCal markets in which company executives sit and have frank-seeming conversations with customers about the company's horrible reputation when it comes to wildfire safety.

As we all know, sparking PG&E lines were responsible for causing devastating and deadly wildfires in Northern California in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021. The company was pushed into bankruptcy in 2019 because of their liability, but they emerged from that a year later, and they continue to have a monopoly over the power grid here.

While we've continued paying our electric and gas bills out of necessity, PG&E is a pretty damaged commodity as brands go. They continue to pay for their wildfire mistakes, and for future wildfire risk mitigation, through rate hikes on consumers, leaving our utility bills among the highest in the nation. (And, as CalMatters reports this week, there's a baked-in line item on our bills that guarantees returns to the company's shareholders, despite everything.)

The company notably announced a plan in 2022 to "underground" 10,000 miles of power lines that probably should have been "undergrounded" years ago — a plan which may not be all it's cracked up to be. ABC10 did a piece last summer about how work to underground power lines in the tiny El Dorado County town of Cool ended in a conspicuously fire-prone spot, where the company erected brand new utility last year poles and strung up new, exposed, above-ground power lines, apparently because it was more cost-effective. "It's all a lie" was the basic message that locals had to say.

The undergrounding project is the subject of one of three new ads PG&E has been running the last two weeks, both on local broadcast affiliates and on basic cable channels. The title of the series is "Open Lines," and it sure reeks of hours of PR brainstorming and well paid consultants.

In this ad below, Chico customer Samantha talks with PG&E Regional Vice President Joe Wilson, saying of the Paradise fire, "There's a constant fear that who's to say something like that can't happen again?"

"That's fair," Wilson responds, noting the undergrounding plan. "You look back at where we were ten years ago, and we are in a completely different place today."

Yeah, because a whole lot of people died and/or lost their homes, and you had to go bankrupt and pay out huge settlements!

Another ad spot features PG&E Regional Vice President Teresa Alvarado speaking with a customer named Andy about the wildfires the company's lines caused. Alvarado assures Andy that the utility has "reduced wildfire risks by 90%" by installing sensors on utility poles that shuts off the power if a wind-caused disconnect occurs.

The third "Open Lines" ad features Fresno customer Nikki asking PG&E VP of Emergency Preparedness Angie Gibson why she never sees PG&E crews coming out to do any maintenance work on nearby power lines. Gibson replies, "We've implemented drone technology... [which] enhances the inspection, so it allows us to see things faster."

PG&E clearly has an uphill climb to get consumers at large to trust them ever again. But is this really the best foot forward? These aren't even particularly convincing bits of conversation, and it's not like these people, in real life, would be so thoroughly convinced of PG&E's trustworthiness and safety in 30 seconds.

The company will have some pie on its face if, you know, one of their power lines is found to be responsible for another hugely destructive or deadly wildfire, and people will then post clips of these ads in memes to drive the hypocrisy home.

But all eyes are Southern California Edison this week, as the company just revealed that it had a "momentary" power surge on its lines just before the Eaton Fire was sparked in Altadena on January 7, and video has come out of arcing, or sparks, coming from a power line directly above where the fire first started.

So, another California utility could have a similarly large mess, and maybe a subsequent bankruptcy, in its future. Not to mention blood on its hands.

Related: Decades Late to the Game, PG&E Begins Putting Power Lines Underground