> All of the PG&E-caused wildfires were due to inadequately maintained equipment operating well beyond its service life.
That sounds like something lawyers say when they want to sue somebody.
Who determines the "service life" of a conductive piece of metal with no moving parts?
> Now to address the counterfactual, "the fires would have happened anyway": no. The leading cause of wildfires in California in general, and impacting people and infrastructure in particular, is electrical equipment. This is empirical; after PG&E began cutting power during high-fire danger days, the number and severity of wildfires dropped dramatically
Nobody disputes that power lines can be an ignition source. The issue is that there are also other ignition sources and dead trees will eventually burn. Causing the fires to be less frequent actually makes the problem worse, because then when it does happen there is even more fuel, which makes the next fire bigger and harder to contain. It's the same failure mode as putting out natural wildfires and leaving all that fuel to accumulate for next time.
Removing some of the ignition sources means you're going to have fewer small fires this year, but at the cost of having bigger ones later. That's not a win.
> Who determines the "service life" of a conductive piece of metal with no moving parts?
Perhaps you might start by explaining how that question is in any way relevant to the current discussion.
The part that was found to have failed was a wire hanger that wore through as it swung in the wind (hint: a moving part) and allowed the power line to fall on the ground.
Somehow (magic or the occult probably) SC Edison and LADWP have not had failures of their physical plant which bankrupted the company. They also had higher maintenance budgets. Hmmm… nope, can’t see how these things are connected.
> The issue is that there are also other ignition sources and dead trees will eventually burn.
Please read citation number three from the parent post. This is not a certainty. Calfire and local agencies do a substantial amount of brush clearing, tree cutting, and when conditions are right, controlled burns. Anything that reduces the frequency of ignition events buys more time for fire control agencies to do this work.
> Please read citation number three from the parent post. This is not a certainty.
The link is essentially arguing that there are some areas with very few natural ignition sources, so most of the fires are caused by people. But that doesn't get you out of the accumulation of fuel. Even if zero of the fires were caused by power lines or nature, there would still be car fires and campfires etc., and longer durations between them causes larger accumulations of fuel.
> Calfire and local agencies do a substantial amount of brush clearing, tree cutting, and when conditions are right, controlled burns. Anything that reduces the frequency of ignition events buys more time for fire control agencies to do this work.
This isn't a case of there being a fixed amount of brush that only has to be cleared out this once and we need to buy some time to allow the work to be completed. It's a continuous process and they don't have the resources to do it everywhere. If you then prevent more of the "unscheduled" fires in the places where they can't and then more fuel accumulates there, what happens?
Fire danger is not a linear function. It fluctuates from year to year with rainfall. Efforts to reduce ignition events are meaningful.
Furthermore, risk to people and property is not uniformly distributed. Fire mitigation efforts are performed disproportionately near population centers. When man-made, preventable ignition causes are concentrated near towns like Paradise, responsible entities have a duty to reduce those risks.
It is not necessary to allow fires to burn houses down to fulfill a concept of accumulated fire risk. Marin County has published a series of videos showing homeowners how to landscape their properties to reduce the spread of fire.
That sounds like something lawyers say when they want to sue somebody.
Who determines the "service life" of a conductive piece of metal with no moving parts?
> Now to address the counterfactual, "the fires would have happened anyway": no. The leading cause of wildfires in California in general, and impacting people and infrastructure in particular, is electrical equipment. This is empirical; after PG&E began cutting power during high-fire danger days, the number and severity of wildfires dropped dramatically
Nobody disputes that power lines can be an ignition source. The issue is that there are also other ignition sources and dead trees will eventually burn. Causing the fires to be less frequent actually makes the problem worse, because then when it does happen there is even more fuel, which makes the next fire bigger and harder to contain. It's the same failure mode as putting out natural wildfires and leaving all that fuel to accumulate for next time.
Removing some of the ignition sources means you're going to have fewer small fires this year, but at the cost of having bigger ones later. That's not a win.