Herman Hernandez, PG&E’s public affairs representative for Lake and Sonoma counties, made his latest meeting appearance at the Clearlake City Council on Thursday night.
Hernandez has previously spoken to the Lakeport City Council as well as to community groups, as Lake County News has reported.
His presentation, which begins at the 16:04 mark in the video shown here, covered the company’s Community Wildfire Safety Program, which includes the Public Safety Power Shutoff program, which it began to use last year.
He told the council on Thursday that he was there to encourage the city, community members, businesses and nonprofits to have plans in the case of power shutoffs.
“People are not taking this seriously,” he said.
He said that climate change, mismanagement of infrastructure and historically large wildfires are the reasons for taking these latest measures, which were arrived at after PG&E leadership visited San Diego, Australia and New Zealand to look at their approaches to wildland fire.
By 2022, PG&E intends to install 1,300 new weather stations across its service area to help them better monitor conditions, Hernandez said.
Hernandez said there are 12 new weather stations installed in Lake County. A listing of all of the company’s weather stations can be found here. The stations are shown in the map above.
At the same time, the company intends to install 600 high definition cameras by 2022. There is one camera in Lake County that he said has been found to not work and is being repaired.
He said PG&E is conducting enhanced vegetation management in high risk fire areas, on top of the work the company does year-round.
The company also has adopted new practices, like disabling automatic reclosers – a type of power switchgear – during fire season because Hernandez said they can cause sparking, which in turn can result in wildfire.
Hernandez explained that red flag warnings trigger review by PG&E’s emergency operations center, but they don’t automatically trigger a public safety power shutoff.
The shutoffs result from several factors working together – including red flag warnings, forecasted humidity at 20 percent or lower, constant winds of 25 miles per hour or higher, with wind gusts of up to 45 miles per hour or more, and dry vegetation, he said.
Lake County wasn’t on a list for a potential shutoff in June because the late rains in May meant that the vegetation hadn’t yet dried out, he said.
Hernandez said that, this year, the thresholds for potential shutoffs have increased, with every area and facility type now on the table.
“Everyone who lives in our service area can be subject to a public safety power shutoff,” he said.
Inspecting and repairing the system
From December through June, PG&E crews completed the Wildfire Safety Inspection Program in what Hernandez called a “blitz.”
PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras offered additional details on the company’s efforts to improve conditions across its system, particularly in Lake County, as part of the Wildfire Safety Inspection Program.
She said PG&E has completed visual inspections of approximately 99 percent of its electric distribution poles and visual or aerial inspections of approximately 98 percent of its electric transmission poles and towers in high-fire threat areas throughout its service territory.
Contreras said that includes approximately 50,000 electric transmission structures, 700,000 distribution poles and 222 substations, covering more than 5,500 miles of transmission line and 25,200 miles of distribution line statewide.
“Throughout the inspection process, PG&E has been addressing and repairing conditions that pose an immediate safety risk, while completing other high-priority repairs on an accelerated basis. Repairs for all other conditions are scheduled to be completed as part of PG&E’s work execution plan,” Contreras said.
She said PG&E teams with experience in system maintenance, engineering and maintenance planning are reviewing millions of high-definition photographs and inspection findings in order to identify needed repair issues.
Information on the repairs is posted on PG&E’s Web site, and can be viewed by city and county. The information is updated through May 31.
The repairs are broken down into category A, immediate, and category B, which Contreras said are conditions that generally need to be addressed within three months from the date a condition is identified.
Contreras said the kinds of repairs that crews are making range from installing new signs or electric components to replacing poles or towers.
Based on PG&E’s latest data, in Lake County PG&E identified 13 immediate repair conditions in distribution facilities, one in transmission and eight involving substations. All have been repaired.
In the less-immediate B category, the following conditions have been identified, repaired or remain open, or pending:
– Distribution: 102 total, 36 repaired, 66 open;
– Transmission: 93 total, 59 repaired, 34 open;
– Substation: 22 total, 22 repaired.
Altogether, 54 percent of the B category conditions have been repaired, PG&E reported.
In city-specific information, PG&E said crews identified immediate A category repairs needed in Clearlake that included one each in distribution and substation, but none in transmission. All have been repaired.
B category repairs in Clearlake total five in distribution, all of which remain open; 14 in transmission, all of which have been repaired; and six in substation, which also have been repaired. Altogether, 80 percent of B category repairs have been finished in Clearlake, PG&E reported.
In Lakeport, PG&E said no immediate category A conditions were identified.
PG&E identified category B conditions totaling three in distribution, two of which have been repaired. No category B issues were found in transmission or substation facilities.
System hardening under way
Contreras said that one of the main pillars of the Community Wildfire Safety Plan is “system hardening.”
Along with the new and enhanced safety measuring and real-time monitoring, the system hardening is meant to further reduce wildland fire risks, and includes installing stronger and more resilient poles and covered power lines across approximately 7,100 line miles of highest fire risk areas in its overall service area, the company said.
PG&E has so far completed nearly four miles of hardening work in Lake County, with another 12.6 more miles planned, Contreras said.
“The hardening consists of the installation of 130 new stronger and more resilient poles and lines that are covered and stronger. It’s also known as covered conductor or tree wire, to reduce the likelihood of outages when trees, branches, animals or birds contact lines,” Contreras said.
Hernandez said PG&E also has done targeted undergrounding work, and is testing resiliency zones, such as a beta project under way in Angwin where they are looking at whether or not they a section off parts of cities and keep them operating, even when other areas need to be shut down.
Resources and information
PG&E has offered the following resources for customers needing more information.
Wildland fire inspections:
www.pge.com/wildfireinspections
Power outage preparation:
www.pge.com/beprepared
To receive alerts:
Update your contact information at www.pge.com/mywildfirealerts
Weather stations list:
https://mesowest.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/stn_mnet.cgi?mnet=227
To learn more about the Community Wildfire Safety Program:
– Call 1-866-743-6589
– Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
– Visit www.wildfiresafety.com
To see if you are in a high risk fire area, visit the California Public Utilities Commission fire threat map:
https://ia.cpuc.ca.gov/firemap/
Additional details also are in the presentation published below.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
072519 Community Wildfire Safety Program Overview - city of Clearlake by LakeCoNews on Scribd