Tom Rolinski, Southern California Edison’s wildfire scientist, has almost 30 years of experience following fires. He helps SoCal Edison prepare for fire season by offering the utility a seasonal outlook, which considers the state of vegetation, weather, and potential fire activity in the territory Edison services.
“That helps the company be proactive and how we want to prepare for the upcoming season,” said Rolinski.
When collecting data to assess areas they focus on two main things: weather conditions and fuel conditions. Fuel conditions depend on how moist or dry the vegetation surrounding an area is. When they study weather conditions they focus on temperature and wind.
Rolinski and his team will go out to collect vegetation every two weeks in 16 areas within their service territory.
“You want to get some ground truth observations for how susceptible the vegetation is to fire,” said Rolinski.
Edison covers about 50,000 square miles and provides electricity to 15 million people. Within this area are a number of “high-fire risk” areas. The Santa Clarita Valley qualifies as one of those areas.
The utility has broken up the service territory into 11 fire climate zones. The data they collect is used to communicate back to the company to assess where the greatest fire potential will be over the next several months.
“We’re very proactive in how we prepare for the upcoming fire season and fire activity,” said Rolinski.
One response Edison utilizes is called “operating restrictions.” Essentially, the system has different settings that go into effect and reduce the load on the system, so if there is a fault so there are fewer sparks, thus reducing the likelihood that the equipment will start a fire, Rolinski said.
The other response occurs when they see a critical fire weather event coming: Edison will initiate public safety power shut offs to prevent any utility-caused wildfire ignition.
Edison has also prepared for fire season by installing 5,700 miles of coated wire covering to prevent any sparks if wires come together or if something comes into contact with the lines.
Edison has placed more than 190 cameras with artificial intelligence technology that can automatically detect wildfires through the images the camera takes. The fire agencies in the area have full control over the cameras to help with response rather than depending on someone spotting a fire.
They have also, reduced the risk of catastrophic wildfires by undergrounding over 7,300 miles of lines in high-fire-risk areas.
“We’re doing a lot of targeted undergrounding. We plan to install about 100 miles of undergrounding by 2025,” said Rolinski.
