“We have to stop utility-caused wildfires.

It is pushing PG&E to insulate its lines in high-risk areas. He is executive director of the ratepayer group The Utility Reform Network in California. It’s been only a few years that utilities have been willing to preemptively shut off people’s power to prevent fire and the disruptive practice is not yet widespread.īut Mark Toney called wildfires caused by utilities absolutely preventable. The same is true for public safety power shutoffs. And the utility is not at all alone in continuing to use bare metal conductors high up on power poles. Some don’t fault Hawaiian Electric for its comparative lack of action because it has not faced the threat of wildfires for as long. Hawaiian Electric said in a filing last year that it had looked to the wildfire plans of utilities in California. It, too, is burying line in areas at severe risk. It buried 180 miles in 2022 and is on pace to do 350 miles this year.Īnother major California utility, Southern California Edison, expects to have replaced more than 7,200 miles, or about 75% of its overhead distribution lines, with covered wire in high fire risk areas by the end of 2025. PG&E also announced in 2021 it would bury 10,000 miles of electrical line. Its program to eliminate uninsulated wire in fire zones has covered more than 1,200 miles of line so far. The disaster was caused by downed power lines. Pacific Gas & Electric was found responsible for the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California that killed 85 people.

Other utilities have been addressing the issue of bare wire. Insulating an electrical wire prevents arcing and sparking, and dissipates heat. Maui police have released a list of the names of 388 people still unaccounted for after the devastating wildfire on the island. So the infrastructure was just not strong enough for this kind of windstorm … The infrastructure itself is just compromised.” “That obviously is not going to withstand 60, 70 mile per hour winds.

“Even tourists that drive around the island are like, ‘What is that?’ They’re leaning quite significantly because the winds over time literally just pushed them over,” she said. Jennifer Potter lives in Lahaina and until the end of last year was on the commission, which regulates Hawaiian Electric. “This work included replacing more than 12,500 poles and structures since 2018 and trimming and removing trees along approximately 2,500 line miles every year on average.”īut a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission confirmed many of Maui’s wooden power poles were in poor condition. “We’ve been executing on a resilience strategy to meet these challenges, and since 2018, we have spent approximately $950 million to strengthen and harden our grid and approximately $110 million on vegetation management efforts,” the company said. 8, they struck bare electrical lines the Hawaiian electric utility had left exposed to the elements. When the winds of Hurricane Dora lashed Maui Aug. 13, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii, following a deadly wildfire that caused heavy damage days earlier.

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