Wildfires caused by transmission and distribution lines impact insurance rates, customer/public relations, and electric utilities’ bottom line. As wildfires ignited by faulted power lines are becoming more litigious, electric utilities need to demonstrate that they are quickly working to address and reduce risks.
Over the last decade, lawsuits and settlements from these types of wildfires have cost electric utilities billions of dollars. In 2024, insurers increased rates for wildfire coverage by 200% to 300% based on prior year losses.
This paper provides ten low-cost, immediate actions that every electric utility can implement to reduce the risk that a wildfire will be ignited by faults on a transmission or distribution line. All ten of these actions can be implemented in less than a year, as none require the installation of new components.
The first step is to designate a Wildfire Awareness Manager who oversees wildfire awareness preparations and fault response teams that include utility personnel and contractors. Next steps include analyzing prior year data, documenting burnable material areas, assessing environmental conditions, understanding burnable material ignition and energy deposition, enhancing operations, and specifying post fault actions.
Addressing concerns about this year’s wildfire season cannot be done through costly, long-term solutions, such as replacing overhead distribution lines with underground distribution lines. Instead, electric utilities would benefit from an in-depth wildfire risk assessment performed by Prescient Transmission Systems. This assessment provides a comprehensive review and analysis of overhead power lines to determine their risk of igniting wildfires and outlines cost-effective changes to reduce wildfire risk along power lines. Prescient also develops procedures for an ongoing wildfire awareness plan that electric utilities can implement every year.