At last, fire rules tightened

California spent the last half of 2017 in flames. So the California Public Utilities Commission’s adoption of new regulations to improve fire safety is a welcome — if long overdue — change.

PG&E and other utilities will be required to increase the minimum clearance between electrical equipment, including power and transmission lines, and trees and other vegetation.

Utilities would also be given greater authority to disconnect customers who refuse to allow crews to remove trees on their property that pose a fire risk.

The new regulations will affect a newly established designation of land in California, the “high fire-threat district.” A detailed map, developed in concert with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, will show areas of the state with an elevated fire risk. The maps are expected to be finalized sometime next year.

The commission’s decision, which was unanimous, should improve fire safety throughout the state.

Still, Californians would have been better off if the commission had passed these rules before this year’s horrible spate of wildfires.

Investigators are still examining whether PG&E’s power lines contributed to the Wine Country fires, which killed 44 people and led to $9.4 billion in insured losses. But utilities’ vegetation management has certainly been a contributing factor for other wildfires in the recent past, including the 2015 Butte Fire in the Sierra foothills.

The commission also stepped in after electrical lines contributed to devastating fires in San Diego in 2007, adopting new safety rules for Southern California. At that point, the commission was supposed to draft new rules for the rest of the state, too.

Why did it take an entire decade for the commission to finish the job?

The commission says it has issued new rules. “We have taken a number of fire-safety actions in past years,” said commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper. “Starting in 2009, the CPUC ... adopted dozens of new regulations.”

None of those rules, however, was anywhere near as far-reaching and significant as this. It’s a shame that it took a year’s worth of devastation to get the commission’s attention.