Utility-caused wildfires are becoming a national problem

After a utility pole fell and sparked a wildfire, Frank King and his family rushed to escape when electrical transformers exploded around their homes near the Oregon coast. In the rearview mirror, a bright red glow was visible for miles.

The fire destroyed 300 homes in Otis, Oregon, three and a half years ago, including the house where Mr. King, a 101-year-old World War II veteran, had lived for nearly three decades.

“A lot of the things that reminded me of the good things in my life are gone,” said Mr. King, who believes things could have turned out differently if his utility, PacifiCorp, had knocked out power lines before a major storm. “It’s taking a terrible toll on me.”

Not long ago, large wildfires caused by power lines and other utilities were considered to occur primarily in California. But these disasters are increasingly happening in many more places as forces spurred by climate change, such as extreme heat and drought, wreak havoc on power grids not built or upgraded to withstand them.

Xcel Energy, a utility company based in Minneapolis, recently acknowledged that its equipment most likely caused the Smokehouse Creek Fire in the Texas Panhandle last month. In August, Hawaiian Electric said one of its power lines ignited the devastating Lahaina fire on the island of Maui. And this month, a jury ordered PacifiCorp to pay $42 million to 10 families who lost their homes in the fire that forced Mr. King to flee his home over the 2020 Labor Day weekend.

In all these cases, the utilities argued that they were not negligent and should not be punished for the fires their equipment caused.

Most climate experts expect that global warming will make wildfires much more likely, even in places not previously considered high-risk, such as rainforests and wetlands. Although wildfires can start in many ways, utilities with their networks of wires and transformers are a major source of concern.

The industry says it is working to reduce the risk of fire in several ways, including burying power lines, a very expensive option, and using cheaper tools such as sensors and software to turn off power when a fire threatens.

But industry critics, including homeowners and some lawmakers, say the industry isn’t doing enough to prevent such fires.

“There is an unwillingness in this industry to adapt,” said Cody Berne, a lawyer in Portland, Oregon, who represents Mr. King and other wildfire survivors. “It’s criminal incompetence.”

Utility executives say the rapid escalation of climate-induced disasters has made it difficult to manage millions of miles of towers, poles and wires in a more than 100-year-old system.

“Past risks are not really a good indicator of future risks anymore,” said Scott Aaronson, senior vice president of safety and preparedness at the Edison Electric Institute, a utility industry trade group. “We are seeing a rapid change in the extremely severe weather. It’s disheartening.”

Electricity costs have risen sharply in recent years as utilities respond to extreme weather events and rising energy demand. The industry spends billions of dollars burying power lines, covering wires, pruning and removing trees and shrubs, and purchasing weather stations, cameras and other equipment to better monitor and control energy equipment.

But not every response to climate change has to be expensive. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that the risk of utility-caused wildfires is increasing can be reduced by as much as 75 percent by using sensors already present in many utilities and by upgrading the companies’ software systems.

These changes would automatically shut down parts of the utility’s network within milliseconds when tree branches, animals or other objects caused problems on the power lines. Using this technology, known as fast trip, is much cheaper and easier than laying power lines underground, an approach that several major Western utilities are also pursuing.

It can cost $3 million to $4 million per mile to bury power lines. Such projects can take years to be approved, developed and completed. By comparison, fast trip technology costs about $5,000 to $10,000 per mile, including installing equipment and sending utility personnel to inspect circuits before power is restored, the Berkeley researchers said.

“There are opportunities for innovation that can further reduce risk,” said Duncan Callaway, a professor of energy and resources at the university.

Mr. Callaway analyzed the wildfire prevention efforts and costs of Pacific Gas & Electric, which has 5.5 million electric customers, more than any other utility in one state. While PG&E and other utilities in the West use fast trip, which he calls “a no-brainer,” Mr. Callaway said he didn’t know how many others were doing so.

Arshad Mansoor, president and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute, agreed that fast trip is an important solution, but he added that other tools, such as low-orbit satellites, can help utilities quickly identify problems and assess conditions without turning off the power.

“The first thing we need to do is implement this early warning system globally,” Mr Mansoor said.

In Oregon, neither automated technology nor utility workers preemptively shut off power over the September weekend of 2020, even though forecasters had warned of high winds and 90-degree heat for days. A falling utility pole sparked a fire on Echo Mountain, near the coast in central Oregon. It was one of them 30 fires that burned 1.2 million acres across the state that weekend, killing nine people and destroying 5,000 homes and businesses.

Jim Holland, a 40-year-old chef, lost the house he and his wife Briana had bought just nine months earlier – their first. The Hollands and Mr. King, a neighbor, have rebuilt the land with insurance money and other assistance, but they have also filed lawsuits seeking damages from PacifiCorp. Many in the community are still so traumatized that every puff of smoke that blows by makes them nervous, even if it’s just from a barbecue. The area is still scarred by mudslides, charred power poles and burned trees with peeling bark.

“It feels like we are living in ruins,” Mr. Holland said. ‘It’s not what it was. There are people with glassy eyes, wondering what has happened to their lives.”

For many Oregonians, it’s hard to fathom how a state known for its rainforests became a tinderbox.

Last year, a wildfire ripped through a critical rainforest with a watershed that supplies water to a million people in the Portland metropolitan area and a hydroelectric dam.

“If you’ve been here a long time, like me, you see that climate change is real,” said Mingus Mapps, a Portland city commissioner who oversees water, transportation and environmental services. “It was a once-in-a-thousand-year fire. It was terrifying.”

A lightning strike ignited that fire. But Mr. Mapps, a Democratic candidate for mayor, said the city was also concerned about the fire risk from electrical equipment.

For utilities, the fires also pose potentially crippling financial risks from lawsuits filed by homeowners and their insurance companies. PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 after racking up billions of dollars in liability from several wildfires, including the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, California.

Mr Aaronson, director of the Industry Trade Group, said utilities had learned from the traumatic wildfires in California. But he noted that utilities caused less than 10 percent of wildfires nationwide.

“We are working to reduce this further,” Mr Aaronson said. “There are tens of thousands of kilometers of transmission infrastructure. There are millions of miles of distribution.”

Extreme weather has made it difficult to ensure that every part of the energy system is ready for climate change. One upgrade some companies are making is greater use of fast trip technology.

PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, said it began using the wildfire prevention technology in 2021, the year after the Echo Mountain wildfire, even though the technology had been around for many years.

But the use of tools such as rapid shutoff or public safety power shutoffs, which California utilities have used when fire risk in an area is expected to be high, could be unpopular because they leave residents and businesses without electricity. Utilities say they prefer approaches that keep the lights on.

Allen Berreth, vice president of wildfire mitigation operations at PacifiCorp, said that while the company was using fast trip and other tools, it also planned to bury many more power lines.

“Undergrounding means no power outages for public safety,” said Mr. Berreth.

Berkshire Chairman and CEO Warren E. Buffett told investors in February that he expected wildfire losses at his company’s subsidiaries to rise in the coming years. He also warned that utilities would have to spend much more money on fire prevention; spending that energy experts say will drive up electricity rates.

“The ultimate outcome for the utility sector could be ominous,” Buffett said. “When the dust settles, America’s energy needs and resulting capital expenditures will be staggering.”