On June 24th, The Wildfire Safety Advisory Board
adopted recommendations on the 2021 Utility Wildfire Mitigation
Plan Guidelines, Performance Metrics, and Safety Culture. These
recommendations meet the June 30th statutory
obligation of
AB 1054 (Holden 2019). In addition to creating the Wildfire
Safety Advisory Board, the bill protected the rights of fire
victims, created additional safety and oversight measures for
utilities, and helped ensure that utilities are held accountable
for the safety of their systems. CSAC
strongly supported AB 1054 as part of our ongoing advocacy on
wildfire prevention and protecting inverse condemnation claims to
help victims and local governments recover from utility cause
wildfires.
The recommendations offer a wholistic approach to wildfire
mitigation. In accordance with the purpose of creating the Board,
the recommendations encourage the Wildfire Safety Division and
the investor-owned utilities to develop and share widely best
practices for wildfire reduction, especially in the areas of
Public Safety Power Shut-off mitigation, workforce development,
and vegetation management. The 23 recommendations are organized
into six different categories including:
Structural recommendations that offer improvements to how the
utility Wildfire Mitigation Plans are organized and the data that
is reported;
Recommendations that align with the guidance that the
Wildfire Safety Division provided to utilities in Resolution
WSD-002;
Recommendations that go beyond what was identified in the
Wildfire Safety Division’s Guidance Resolution WSD-002;
Recommendations on performance metrics, including a new
threshold for System Hardening for Electric Utility Resiliency
(SHEUR) to reduce the need for Public Safety Power Shut-offs and
a new approach to improve reporting on community outreach;
Several recommendations that encourage the utilities to use
wildfire mitigation planning and implementation as a springboard
to improve their safety culture; and finally,
Recommendations that would likely require action by the
Governor or the Legislature to implement, such as a
recommendation to keep the Wildfire Safety Division at the CPUC,
which could save the State of California unnecessary expense of
moving and allow the Division to focus on wildfire mitigation.
