Oversight for California's utilities is lacking, audit finds

By Julia Ingram April 3, 2022

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the state's regulatory body for electric utilities, isn't doing enough to hold tilities accountable for preventing wildfires, a state audit found.

Electrical power, mostly administered by the state's three largest utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric's (PG&E), Southern California Electric (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), was the cause of almost a fifth of the acres that burned in California from 2015 to 2020, according to the audit report.

The audit, released March 24, found that CPUC approved wildfire prevention plans submitted by the companies even when they found them to have deficiencies. In one instance, CPUC approved PG&E's 2020 mitigation plan, even though it failed to state where it would prioritize trimming trees and other vegetation around power lines.

Vegetation and other objects colliding into overhead power lines is a common cause of fires, especially when those power lines aren't covered by protective, insulating material. The audit found that of the 40,000 miles of exposed power lines, state's six utilities only added that insulation to about 1,500 miles of them. PG&E's own analysis of fires they caused from 2015 to 2017 found that 80% of the blazes could have been prevented by insulating overhead power line and improved vegetation management, the audit report stated.

Electrical equipment managed by California's three largest utilities — PG&E, SCE and SDG&E — ignited over 3,000 fires between 2015 and 2020.

42% of these were caused by an object colliding with an electrical wires that hands overhead, a risk that's highest when lines are bare, rather than insulated.

Most fires caused by electrical equipment burn less than a quarter of an acre. But in areas designated to be at high or extreme fire risk, these fires were 1.67 times more likely to burn more land than a quarter-acre.

All but three of the 15 fires larger than 5,000 acres occured in high- or extreme-risk areas. And all but one of them were caused by PG&E, which has the highest percentage of uninsulated power lines among the state's six utilities, according to the audit report.

Camp Fire, the state's most destructive and deadly wildfire, wasn't even included in PG&E's 2018 report, the auditors identified, so it isn't displayed on this map. Investigators later determined faulty and improperly maintained infrastructure caused the fire.

In a response letter attached to the audit report, California Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety Director Caroline Thomas Jacobs wrote that her office shares the auditor's perspective "that the utilities must move faster and be smarter."

"The department will evaluate the need for any changes to the Wildfire Mitigation Plan Guidelines, including changes to the Lessons Learned section, through its established annual process," Jacobs wrote.

Map Data Source: California Public Utilities Commission

This story was done for Data Studio, a class in the Columbia Journalism School. To view the source code and read more about the project, visit the GitHub repository here.