This isn’t true. In most places I’ve been, electrical lines have all been elevated on poles. Where I currently live, there is a pretty intensive line clearing program each spring to keep the lines clear. Even in places where house level lines were buried, the middle transmission lines were still elevated.

And I believe all high voltage transmission lines are above ground.

The difference is that California historically has fire prone conditions. It’s not like the rest of the country is doing something different and California has done something inherently wrong. It’s that California did what the rest of the country was doing, but without conditions to support it.

> This isn’t true.

Most countries don’t have regular residential streets with power lines up in the air.

The fires are mostly caused by large transmission lines outside of urban areas, not local lines on residential streets.

For example https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/10/15/pg... - these are normally buried elsewhere.

This is a very common way to setup power lines in the US.

It is significantly cheaper than burying lines from an initial cost point of view, so as long as the cost of preventive maintenance is low enough, it is a viable option. Particularly if the cost to fix lines is also low.

As an added bonus, it then also becomes easier to hang other lines (telephone, cable, fiber) on the same poles. This more difficult to do with buried lines, even if the lines are in conduit.

I’d prefer my electrical lines to be buried too, but I at least understand why they aren’t.

No, not all high voltage is above ground.

Street-level and medium-voltage distribution, sure, but nobody wants to bury 100+ kV lines unless they really have to, because it's hugely expensive and also has much higher losses.