With the Bay Area forecast to experience some of its hottest days this year, PG&E said it's making preparations to keep lights on around power lines and keep fire risks low.
The San Pablo Hazard Awareness and Warning Center will operate 24/7 to help PG&E use early detection (including tools such as AI) to identify and track potential weather hazards and pinpoint hazards as quickly as possible.
“The sooner we respond to an incident, the less of an impact it has, so the sooner we can get firefighters to fight the fire, the less of an impact it has and the more likely it is to save lives,” Jim Ridway, senior manager at the Hazard Awareness and Warning Centre, said.
The goal is to reduce the risk of wildfires and strengthen the power grid. As the hot weather approaches, power companies believe that after two years of rain and no drought, the risk of wildfires will be low until July, but explain that the risk will return to normal in August.
“Compared to a normal year in California, the risk is a little bit lower,” said Scott Strenfel, PG&E's senior director of meteorology and fire science. “We're not taking this too seriously because we know it only takes one extreme weather event to have devastating consequences.”
There may be even more good news: Power companies say there will be fewer public safety outages in the future, thanks to new technology that allows them to shut off only affected parts of the system.
Last year, PG&E had to shut off service twice, affecting 5,000 people.
Compare that to 2019, when nine public safety outages left more than 2 million people without power.
Power companies say burying hundreds of power lines underground, installing sturdier poles and using higher-resolution cameras and wildfire risk systems are also helping.
“This is dynamic so we can understand the risk if there's a fire at 3 p.m. versus if there's a fire at 8 a.m.,” said Scott Purdy, a weather analyst for PG&E.
PG&E said its firefighters are also prepared to respond to wildfires this season and better protect utility poles by treating them before the fire reaches them.
“That way, when a fire hits a pole, the pole is protected, people can evacuate, roads aren't blocked, firefighters can get in, and then when we're ready to restore power, our infrastructure is all ready to go and there's no delays,” said Mike Martin, PG&E's chief of safety and infrastructure protection.
Power companies hope a combination of improved technology and planning will help protect power and people.
“We are seeing positive signs in the weather forecast here, but if we need to take action we are ready to take action to protect our community,” Strenfell said.
