California Fires and the Utilities

Fires have always happened in California around October and November when the Santa Ana winds happen. It's very dry in California at that time. As a little kid in California, my sinuses and nasal passages were so dry during October and November that that's the time I would catch cold.

Back when I was small, fires in California were typically set by teenage arsonists. Deliberate arson seems rare today in California although other human-related causes are very frequent. I guess Gen Z and the Millennials have fewer firebugs than the Baby Boomers did when they were young.

Today's fires are often larger and faster-moving than the fires when I was young. In addition, there are more fires than there were than in the 1940s and 50s.  The California Chaparral Institute notes that excessive fires destroy chaparral and convert it into weedy, non-native grassland that burns more easily than chaparral does. You can see photos of bare, grassy hills where the chaparral scrubland has been destroyed by too-frequent fires.

Let's talk about electric utilities and fires, because they have been linked. That association was rarely made when I was young in California and teenagers were starting fires for thrills.

Note that an electric utility usually has two sides: generating and distribution. Generating can be done using hydroelectric, nuclear, solar, or the fossil fuels coal, oil, or gas. California currently relies on a combination of renewable sources and natural gas.  California never had easy access to coal, and thus coal has never been a major energy source, although a few small coal plants formerly operated in California. All are closed now.

Electric distribution is the way to get the electricity from the point of generation to the customer. It usually involves high-voltage trunk lines, step-down transformers, and circuits to homes and businesses.

Recently, California utilities have shut off electricity during high-risk fire conditions. This is known as a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS).  Californians have complained about the power outages, particularly their impact on people with medical needs.

Several of the fires that have broken out recently under Santa Ana wind conditions are linked to power lines owned by major investor-owned utilities. The California Public Utilities Commission has determined that over 2,000 fires between 2017 and 2017 were linked to power lines.

The 77,758-acre Kincade Fire has been linked to a Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) transmission tower.   More recently, the 9400-acre Maria Fire has been linked to a Southern California Edison power line that had been re-energized after a Public Safety Power Shutoff. The 2017 Thomas Fire was linked to a line owned by SCE and the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people in the town of Paradise has been linked to PG&E equipment.  Liability from the Camp Fire and fires in 2017 has caused PG&E to go bankrupt.

San Diego Gas and Electric has a smaller service area than PG&E or SCE. However, they have buried 60% of their power lines and taken other major fire prevention steps.

Back when I was young, power lines rarely started fires. Most of the lines were newer then. The power companies cleared vegetation around the lines. Reddy Kilowatt was still a mascot at Southern California Edison.

More importantly, when I was young, the population of California was only 11 million people. It is now nearly 40 million people.  More than 90% of California's wildfires have human-related causes.

The natural condition of chaparral, the dominant ecosystem in California, is to have infrequent fires once every 30 to 150 years. Recently, there have been fires more frequently in California than the chaparral ecosystem can tolerate. The reason for the frequency of fires is because humans start them in one way or the other. Lately, that has been because of faults in electrical infrastructure.

During recent years, hundreds of thousands of houses have been built in the hills in high-risk fire areas. The wildland-urban interface has grown rapidly putting large numbers of people at fire risk.

More people and more houses being built in hillside areas means more power distribution lines and consequently greater vulnerability to wildfires. Almost all of these houses are made of wood.

Dr. Stephen M. Strader found that the increase in building in fire hazard zones from 1940 onward has placed millions of people in harm's way. Strader concludes that

 "The continued development and implementation of building codes, standards, and practices that reduce the likelihood of homes, businesses, etc., being destroyed by wildfires is vital in creating a more wildfire resistant society."

Californians love their overvalued wooden houses. They love to build them in the hills. Real estate in many cities and suburbs in California is extremely expensive.  There is a huge disjuncture between the fire risk, the wooden construction of the houses, and the high prices.

This disjuncture must be addressed by insurance companies. Some have stopped renewing policies in high fire risk areas.  If you can't insure a house, lenders won't write a mortgage for it.

There is now an insurer of last resort known as the California FAIR Plan. The FAIR Plan is a private association of insurers that offers less comprehensive insurance for homes where traditional insurers have refused to write policies. Pretty soon, they might start writing homeowner's insurance that only protects against burglary and flood but not fire.

Whereas homes in Europe and Latin America, including zones of high seismic risk such as Chile, are usually built of reinforced brick-and-concrete, or sometimes adobe, California's builders and consumers insist on wooden houses because they are cheaper to build initially. Frank Lloyd Wright knew better.

By the way, "reinforced" means that metal rebar is placed and tied together as a major structural element in the masonry. This is usually done in the concrete support columns of a building, but sometimes rebar is strung through the holes in concrete masonry units. The rebar has a "bend" and "give" that provides earthquake resistance.

Perhaps insurers will start refusing to write policies for wooden homes in fire areas, but allow homes with adobe, concrete, steel, or brick elements to be underwritten.

Other than the increase in population placing themselves at risk by moving into fire areas, there may be utility and regulatory problems with the power distribution system in California. Why the lack of maintenance of power lines?

There have been lawsuits against the nuclear generating stations in California since around 1970 when Atlantic Richfield oil executive Robert O. Anderson funded Friends of the Earth. There have been numerous expensive lawsuits against both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre during the past forty years.

It is my suspicion that lawsuits against nuclear generating plants in California have diverted resources away from the utilities' maintenance funds for the distribution end. Pressure groups have focused overwhelmingly on the nuclear generating stations and have demanded that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) focus its attention on them while ignoring deterioration in distribution systems, all the while more and more people move into fire zones. This diverted the CPUC from paying attention to fire risk until around 2008. Thus, the CPUC never told the utilities that they need to bury power lines.

Some people including governor Gavin Newsom have suggested that the State of California take over PG&E. Although the company is bankrupt, there is no other reason for state takeover of the company. A state takeover doesn't necessarily mean that power lines will be buried or infrastructure improved.  And, it won't address the fundamental problem, which is too many people moving into fire areas and building wooden houses that are likely to catch fire.