Taxes is a red herring. Most of this area is forest—“maintaining it” doesn’t involve clearing trees. The only reason to do that would be for the safety of the power lines. And depending where you are in Europe, the money for stuff like that comes from the same place as in California. A government regulatory agency (in California, the CPUC) decides what prices the utility can charge based on what it perceives as being “prudent investments” by the utility plus a small profit. The money comes not from taxes, but from rate payers.
The reason this kind of maintenance failure happens in the US is because our public regulators are more short sighted than your public regulators. They are political appointees that keep rates too low to keep voters happy. The US has some of the lowest electric rates in the world: https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-elect.... (California’s are high for the US, but still very low compared to Europe.)
You're just talking about the areas near power lines now though. Those fires wouldn't be as big of an issue if the rest of the area was properly maintained, not allowing the fire to spread. That part has nothing to do with the power companies.
So yes, not having the fires start is on the power companies, however making sure it can't spread isn't. Which is why I wrote 'in part'.
I see. The Americans aren’t averse to paying taxes for controlled burns. It’s a political issue in California for environmental reasons, not financial reasons.
The reason this kind of maintenance failure happens in the US is because our public regulators are more short sighted than your public regulators. They are political appointees that keep rates too low to keep voters happy. The US has some of the lowest electric rates in the world: https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-elect.... (California’s are high for the US, but still very low compared to Europe.)