'I can't get my trees back': Texas trader lost millions of trees on his ranch to wildfires — says power line poles are to blame

Two people died, ome 15,000 head of cattle perished and Abraham lost approximately 3 to 4 million trees on his ranch, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“I can’t get my trees back,” he told the Journal. “We’ve got a bigger problem, which is this is everywhere. The world needs to know this is dangerous, and it’s going to get worse.”

The data obsession, theory and lawsuits

Abraham, a “self-described data junkie,” responded the way he knows best: by studying the problem systematically. He proactively went looking for patterns, traversing the region for two years, photographing the metal inspection tags on utility poles along back alleys and highways to assess their condition.

He also pursued Xcel Energy in court, seeking inspection records for poles across more than 200,000 miles of distribution lines in eight states the Minnesota-based utility serves.

“I’m just trying to figure out a puzzle here,” he told the Journal. “And when there’s data involved, I’m pretty good at figuring out the puzzle.”

His central argument: Xcel had fallen behind in pole inspections before the Smokehouse Creek Fire and was negligent in maintaining its infrastructure. Xcel has conceded its equipment was likely involved in the ignition but contests the negligence claim, the Journal notes.

Xcel shared this statement with Moneywise: “We disagree with several of the assertions Salem Abraham made to the Wall Street Journal. What was not specifically mentioned is that Abraham has filed several lawsuits against the company, seeking damages in the billions of dollars and well in excess of established values for claims of this nature. We are unable to discuss pending litigation.”

Abraham isn’t the only person allegedly taking legal action. In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Xcel, pointing to pre-fire inspections that showed deteriorating poles — some dating to 1936.

Under a temporary injunction, Xcel agreed to inspect 35,000 Texas poles annually and replace the most damaged ones as soon as a day post-inspection, the Journal reports. The company has estimated its Texas fire-related losses at $460 million or more and paid nearly $400 million in settlements through June.

A national problem in plain sight

Abraham’s fight is a local version of a problem that extends across the country. According to a 2025 U.S. Department of Energy assessment cited by Idaho National Laboratory, approximately 70% of U.S. transmission lines are 25 years old or older.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, over 70% of the country’s transmission lines and power transformers are more than 25 years old. That’s infrastructure built largely in the postwar era that, according to the Journal, is “ill-equipped to meet the soaring power demands of the AI era.”

A report from Stanford University’s Climate and Energy Policy Program found that many U.S. utilities are not adequately prepared for wildfire risk, warning that the cost of inaction is growing — and that wildfires can bankrupt utilities and ultimately increase rates for consumers.

Xcel’s executive vice president and chief delivery officer acknowledged the challenge: “It’s not a matter if we’re behind. It’s a matter of learning from a rapidly evolving risk that is new to the world and to our industry,” Michael Lamb told the Journal.