Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Burnt Ranch is a tiny unincorporated community in Trinity County, California of 325 people. It has a school and a post office. The ZIP Code is 95527. The community is inside area code 530. The novelist Bryan Malessa wrote The Flight while living at a remote ranch at the end of Friedrich Road (Forest Route 5N25), blocked by a gate.