USA: Blame utilities for wildfire, but blame everyone else too
By Matt Simon
It's hard to feel sorry for the California utility PG&E, considering that officials blamed its equipment for starting nearly every major fire in the state in 2017. Last year, it was responsible for igniting the Camp Fire, which killed 85 and destroyed almost 20,000 structures. The problem is typically wind, which jostles electric lines, raining sparks onto parched vegetation below.
[...]
That’s the new normal in a state crisscrossed with power lines. We can’t stop electrical equipment and high winds from disagreeing with one another, but PG&E can get better at proactive shutoffs to silence that bickering. There’s also precedent here. Beginning in 2013, the San Diego Gas & Electric Company has done 13 public safety shutoffs, and says it hasn’t had a major fire. They’ve got an in-house meteorology team monitoring 177 weather stations for temperature, humidity, and wind speed to divine the fire threat.
But again, it’s not as simple as pulling the plug. “One thing people may not understand is if you turn off power during an extreme weather event, even after the wind dies down you can't just turn the power back on right away,” says San Diego Gas & Electric Company spokesperson Helen Gao. “We have people out there who patrol the lines to make sure there's no damage.” If they find something they need to repair, the power stays off.
[...]
PG&E needs to get better at safety, and it can't get off the hook on that. But the grander solution is one of political will and social effort. Federal and state land managers need to do more about brush: Last year California did around 55,000 acres of prescribed burns, while the southeastern US did 100 times more, even though it’s only five times bigger than California. And for the love of Pete, we need to stop building in wildfire zones. For existing cities in peril, we have to mandate that homeowners—every single homeowner—constantly clear brush from their yards and leaves and pine needles from their roofs, decks, and gutters. Take it from Rancho Santa Fe in Southern California, a city that has gone to extreme lengths, including year-round inspections, to make itself virtually wildfire-proof.
[...]