Regulators, critics stall Hawaii utility’s wildfire safety plan

The historic 2023 Lahaina wildfire that killed over 100 people was caused by high winds snapping a power pole. Two years later, the island’s utility is struggling to implement prevention measures to stop the next wildfire from starting.

Hawaiian Electric’s proposed wildfire safety plan has stalled in Public Utilities Commission meetings, with members saying they need more time to review both the plan and $350 million the utility wants to charge customers over the next three years to pay for it.

The utility, in a June press release, said the plan would focus on grid hardening, asset inspections, and vegetation management in areas with medium to high risk of ignition. The plan would be funded by residential bill increases of up to $5 a month on Maui, and less on other islands, the utility claimed. It also said the funds would go toward installing more weather stations and hazard-detection cameras while continuing engagement with local communities.

Hawaii’s state agency Division of Consumer Advocacy, while acknowledging the “meaningful progress” of the plan, concluded that it is largely unsatisfied with it, saying it would result in increases to residents’ power bills to recover the costs. It also labeled the entirety of the utility’s plan as “below expectations” and “needs improvement” because the utility’s wildfire plan falls short of industry standards, doesn’t factor in socially vulnerable populations, and is overly aggressive in costly capital improvements without solid foundations in wildfire modeling.

“HECO is trying to catch up to something they should have addressed years ago, and they want to bill rate payers for the fact that they’ve been delaying dealing with the issue,” Life of the Land clean energy advocate Henry Curtis told Hawaii News Now. “They have overhead lines in high wildfire risk areas and their solution would be, well, we can turn them off in high wind conditions, low humidity conditions. But that means that communities that are in rural areas are more likely to be impacted negatively by this.”

The utility, according to submitted testimony, has absorbed over $100 million in costs since its lines started the deadly wildfire by ramping up prevention tactics including clearing high grasses and replacing other infrastructure. But the Consumer Advocate said the utility still needs to better integrate fire behavior modeling and vegetation management into its risk assessments.

Click here to read Consumer Advocates’ assessment of the plan.

Oregon governor meets with USFS and utilities

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Monday joined U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, state agency leaders, and members of the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council, including representatives from PGE, Pacific Power, Avista, and rural electric cooperatives for a roundtable discussion about national strategies that can support local efforts to reduce the catastrophic risk of wildfire.

“Wildfire threatens our natural areas, our homes, and even our lives,” Kotek said. “Today, we committed to expanding our coordination across large and small utilities and federal partners to help ensure that Oregon meets the highest possible standard for wildfire prevention and response.”

Oregon 2020 fires
2020 fires — Oregon State Fire Marshal photo.

Pacific Power serves much of Oregon and has suffered in court over its powerlines, fire ignitions, and legal liability for homes and property destroyed by wildifres its lines started. Simon Gutierrez with Pacific Power said the company created a “robust wildfire mitigation plan” that’s been in place since 2019, “designed to minimize the risk of our equipment potentially igniting a wildfire.”

But in the fall of 2020, with east winds picking up toward the end of a long, hot and dry summer, Mill City Fire Chief Leland Ohrt was dispatched to a home not far from his own, where a tree branch had fallen on a powerline and started a small brush fire. Ohrt, a VFD chief in a small town in western Oregon’s Cascades, hosed down the fire and then drove over to Schroeder Road, where another tree branch had fallen over another powerline and was still arcing sparks into the dry fuels below. Ohrt couldn’t stop the sparking, so he hosed the utility lines with water until they exploded and de-energized themselves.

Those two incidents initiated a frenzied 48 hours for Ohrt, acccording to an OPB report, and he was later recognized for his efforts to save Mill City as the fires destroyed thousands of homes down the Santiam Canyon and across other parts of western Oregon. Ohrt watched Pacific Power’s utility lines start those fires, but he took the stand in court in May of 2023 to defend the company in a class-action trial against Pacific Power.

Back in 2019, Governor Kate Brown recommended that utilities prepare risk-based wildfire procedures in a report on wildfire response. She then issued an executive order that  directed the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to evaluate utility protection plans, leading to Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) requirements.

Pacific Power complied, setting up a formal plan for PSPS — a temporary measure that de-energizes lines to keep people and communities safe. But as Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported, in an historic legal decision, a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury found Pacific Power (PacifiCorp) liable for around $90 million to western Oregon residents who lost homes and property after the company failed to shut down power despite multiple warnings about severe windstorms over the 2020 Labor Day holiday.

Pacific Power court exhibit
One of the exhibits at trial of the class-action suit against Pacific Power (PacifiCorp)

KTVZ News reported that the USFS met this week with Governor Kotek and utility companies to discuss mitigation since the passage of Senate Bill 762. Public safety power shut-offs are now a routine practice in Oregon, fire mitigation plans are annually submitted to the Oregon PUC for approval, and pre-fire season meetings with utilities and first responders occur annually.

A report earlier this month by the Source Weekly examined the issue of whether utility companies should shut off power to their lines during periods of high fire risk. In the wake of devastating wildfires ignited by powerlines — particularly in Oregon during the Labor Day 2020 fires and more recently in Hawai’i — utility companies must prioritize and clarify their planning for power shutoffs.

The report by Source Weekly has additional details about companies’ plans for wildfire shutoffs.

California Sen. Bill Dodd leads an oversight hearing Tuesday on state wildfire response

Chairman of the California state’s Senate Governmental Organization Committee, Bill Dodd, D-Napa, will hold a hearing tomorrow to review “improvements to wildfire preparedness and prevention,” including legislation and investments undertaken over the past five years. The Daily Republic of Solano County reported that the committee will hear from state and local agencies including Cal Fire and the Legislative Analyst’s Office, and will take public comment.

Back in February, the Lake County News reported on Sen. Dodd’s announcement of legislation to create the Wildfire Mitigation Planning Act, to better prevent and contain wildfires. In the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire (which leveled the northern California town of Paradise and evacuated not just Paradise but also Magalia, Centerville, Concow, Pulga, Butte Creek Canyon, Berry Creek and Yankee Hill), Dodd co-authored AB 1054, which created a framework for electric utilities to evaluate their wildfire risk and plan for their wildfire mitigation investments and activities — overseen by the Office of Electric Infrastructure Safety within the California Natural Resources Agency.

alifornia Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task ForceThe California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, a multiagency effort to identify needs and develop strategies for wildfire risk, has produced plans to better manage risk.

“With this cycle of heavy rains and prolonged droughts, we cannot take our eyes off of the risks that major wildfires present to communities across the state,” said Dodd. “The Legislature made good progress on wildfire safety and we must ensure our proposals and investments do what they are intended to do,” he said in a statement announcing the hearing, which will be held tomorrow after Senate adjournment.

The hearing will be available live at senate.ca.gov — background information is available at https://sgov.senate.ca.gov/sites/sgov.senate.ca.gov/files/wildfire_oversight_background_3.28.23.pdf