Pacific Gas and Electric Company

California's largest utility company pleaded guilty on Tuesday to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter. It marks the first time that any major utility has been charged with homicide.

Democrat Gavin Newsom has been critical of the state's largest utility, PG&E, in the face of planned power outages that left 2 million customers without electricity.

California's largest utility says "critical fire weather" makes outages necessary in 17 counties.

The utility giant had already acknowledged that the fire investigation would likely find its equipment responsible for the Camp Fire in 2018.

The company signaled its leadership change last month even before filing for bankruptcy. The utility giant faces billions of dollars in liability claims due to California's wildfires.

Power transmission lines owned by the beleaguered utility company are still the focus of an investigation into the cause of the Camp Fire in 2018.

The utility company is trying to convince a federal judge to modify a wide-ranging proposal to mitigate wildfire risk. PG&E is also seeking bankruptcy protection.

The temporary outages could hit some 87,000 customers in Northern California. The impacted areas are forecast to have risky weather conditions, including low humidity and gusty winds.