PG&E opens nerve center for detecting California wildfires

SAN FRANCISCO

In a room overlooking San Francisco Bay at PG&E headquarters, data analysts and fire experts now keep watch for wildfires across 70,000 square miles of Northern and Central California.

Here, in a new wildfire safety operations center opened Tuesday, a bank of screens streams the latest weather forecasts, wind reports and satellite images. The nerve center - behind two checkpoints in a highly secure PG&E building on Beale Street - was created to give the embattled utility company an edge anticipating the next catastrophic wildfire and mobilizing crews to protect people and equipment.

This is where PG&E decision-makers will initiate new protocols like shutting off power lines during wind storms when fire risk is high - a strategy the company didn’t employ in October when powerful winds buffeted the region and fires ignited in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake, Solano and Yolo counties.

“As we monitor fire risks throughout our service territory, this is where key decisions are going to be made,” Pat Hogan, PG&E senior vice president of electric operations said during a media tour of the new nerve center.

Cal Fire hasn’t completed its investigations into what caused six major fires that broke out late Oct. 8 and early Oct. 9, spokesman Scott McLean said Tuesday.

But PG&E is the target of more than 100 lawsuits blaming its power lines for igniting the infernos that destroyed more than 6,400 homes across the six counties, killed 44 people and caused at least $10 billion in insured losses.

Critics and litigants claim PG&E is liable, citing what they claim is poor power line maintenance and failures to prepare for high winds, which were predicted days in advance.

The company’s lawyers argue the fires were a result of a series of unprecedented weather events, including a multiyear drought, heavy rains that fostered extensive growth in brush and trees, record summer heat and a “high wind event” Oct. 8 and Oct. 9.

The utility also has filed a complaint against Sonoma County, claiming local government officials contributed to the destructive nature of the fires through what PG&E contends was inadequate urban planning and failures in emergency planning and lax enforcement of brush clearance rules, according to a document filed April 18 with the county. The claim reserves the right of PG&E lawyers to sue Sonoma County in the future.

PG&E is preparing to deal with a potentially staggering financial liability if it is held responsible for the wildfires in its service area, according to company executives addressing investors during an earnings call last week. The October firestorm has already cost the utility company upward of $50 million in one-time expenses such as replacing destroyed powerlines.

The new operations center is part of a multifaceted program developed by the investor-owned utility this year to address “the new normal of wildfire risks,” according to Hogan.

He and other PG&E spokespeople declined to say how much the operation center costs to run. Spokeswoman Andrea Menniti said the company is “continuing to scope out the costs.” PG&E can seek to recover costs incurred complying with fire safety requirements through the California Public Utilities Commission. It cannot, however, defray state-assigned liability costs and attorney fees onto ratepayers, a legal prohibition PG&E lobbyists are seeking to change.

At the operation center, analysts sit before a bank of 16 screens showing various maps and surveillance cameras at key sites such as the Oroville Dam in Butte County and overlooking a portion of the heavily forested Tahoe area. They tap into a network of publicly available sites like community fire detection cameras and federal weather service data in addition to the power utility’s outage reports. They also search social media for people reporting fire activity and listen to police and fire radio traffic.

The company is rolling out a fleet of new weather stations to provide real-time data on wind speed and direction, humidity and temperature. So far they have installed five stations, including one on Franz Valley Road in northeastern Sonoma County, and plan to add another 200 by the end of the year.

PG&E crews are also in the process of replacing automatic re-energizing devices on its grid that were implicated in past fires, including the 2007 Witch fire in San Diego that forced half a million people to flee.

Called reclosers, the devices detect power surges and respond by cutting power, and then sending pulses of energy through the line in an attempt to re-electrify the line. Those pulses of electricity can spark fires if the lines are broken or touching vegetation.

PG&E is replacing reclosers that must be deactivated manually with a type of recloser that can be turned off remotely when fire risk is high.

The utility has laid out additional plans for preventing its equipment from starting fires, such as clearing 15 feet of vegetation around utility poles and gradually - over several decades - replacing wooden poles with ones made of steel or composite material, in addition to treating more poles with fire retardant in high risk areas.

The utility has hired a San Diego-based private firefighting firm Capstone Fire and Safety Management to staff the operations center with fire prevention experts and stage firefighters throughout its service region. Capstone currently has two-person engine crews posted in Santa Rosa, Bakersfield, Paso Robles and Fresno in addition to a four-person team in Oakland, and plans to add 20 additional engines by June, said Ed McOrmond, Capstone’s chief.

Private fire prevention and mitigation teams are increasingly seen as necessary for industries seeking to limit costly losses.

During the October firestorm, residential insurance companies sent private crews to defend client homes by setting up sprinklers, dousing embers and even applying fire-suppressant gels and foams.

Capstone’s firefighters will deploy with PG&E line workers and focus on protecting people and equipment, McOrmond said. Capstone also provides services for San Diego Gas & Electric.

PG&E also has developed a new protocol for preemptively shutting down power during times of great high fire risk, a tactic used by San Diego Gas & Electric in the past but not PG&E.

Hogan said the company is creating maps identifying “microgrids” within communities so it can shut off power to targeted areas during high-risk wind events, Hogan said. They are working with communities to identify key sites like a school where the utility company will maintain power so people have a place to go.

“The idea is to be as selective as possible,” Hogan said.