PG&E DISCUSSES FIRE PLANS WITH RESIDENTS
Interactive, regionally-focused town hall answered questions
LAKE COUNTY » Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) hosted an interactive, regionally-focused virtual safety town hall Wednesday, to discuss their wildfire prevention plans and to present an overview of 2020 and local vegetation management efforts. The meeting was opened to the community via zoom and attendees participated sending questions and feedback to the online PG&E team.
“Even in the midst of the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re still doing everything we planned to address the threat of catastrophic wildfires,” said PG&E senior manager Laura Wetmore, who hosted the event. “The past year has been really difficult for everybody in California, with the challenges that have come with COVID-19. We had record breaking heat, rotating power outages and then, of course, the wildfire season,” added interim head of electric operations for the company, Debbie Powell.
“We know the magnitude of the challenges that we face. Over the past decade, high temperatures extreme dryness and record high winds have increased fire risks across the areas that we serve in Northern and Central California,” said local Government Relations Representative Mark van Gorder. “Nearly one third of the electric lines that provide our customers with power are now in high fire threat areas. Our teams are working everyday to continue to improve the safety of our electric system and further reduce wildfire risks.”
Van Gorder added that PG&E will continue working with customers on solutions to prevent major wildfires, and to keep communities safe. “We are meeting and exceeding state vegetation safety standards, hardening the electric system, testing and using new technologies, and improving our public safety power shutoff program to reduce the number of customers affected and the amount of time without power.”
According to Gorder, immediate and comprehensive ac
tions to upgrade the infrastructure are being taken, monitoring fire threats in real time and establishing new wildfire safety measures throughout the service territory. “We’re using better weather monitoring technology and installing new weather stations that more precisely forecast the weather that could lead to public safety power shut off (PSPS). We opened community resource centers to support customers without power. All resource centers reflect appropriate COVID-19 health considerations, and state and county guidelines are being met there. We’re strengthening the electric system with stronger poles, covered power lines and targeted undergrounding to further reduce wildfire risks and better withstand severe weather.”
The utility representative added PG&E is installing devices that limit the size of outages — micro grids — that use generators to help keep the electricity on. “We’re expanding and enhancing our vegetation safety work to address vegetation that poses a higher potential for wildfire risk in high fire threat areas,” he said.
Company officials reiterated that they continue to take steps everyday to improve the safety and reliability of their electric system. This includes working with customers and communities to manage trees and other vegetation located near power lines that could cause a wildfire or power outages.
“We expect approximately 100,000 miles of overhead power lines every year. Some locations we actually patrol multiple times a year,” said Tony Walls, who supervises vegetation management program operations in Napa County.
“We prune, or remove over a million trees annually to maintain clearance around the power lines. We are also tasked with removing dead diseased dying or defective trees, primarily in areas affected by drought or bark beetles. We have expanded our vegetation management efforts by establishing increased safety clearances between our powerlines and surrounding vegetation in the high fire threat districts,” said Walls.
Public Safety Specialist for Lake County, Donovan Lee, claimed the power shut offs are a last resort, when the weather forecast is so severe “that people safety, lives, businesses, and or other may be in danger of significant wildfires. The most likely electrical lines to be shut off for safety will be those that pass through the high fire threat areas. This includes both distribution and transmission lines.”
A really common question posed by community members is why the utility does not bury all the lines underground instead of having to cut down trees. “The geography can be challenging — if there’s a lot of rock or other materials in the land that makes it really tough to underground the line… The number of people who are served in that area is a consideration, as well as the height of the tree — and we call them ‘strike potential trees.’ The other thing is the permitting process can be significant especially when those lines cross multiple customers’ properties. There’s a lot of consideration, but we are looking for areas where it makes really good sense to underground lines for our customers,” said Powell.
Residents are urged to send their questions to wildfiresafety@pge.com or call 1-866-743-6589.