(a) Each local publicly owned electric utility and electrical cooperative shall construct, maintain, and operate its electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment.

(b) (1) The local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative shall, before January 1, 2020, prepare a wildfire mitigation plan. After January 1, 2020, a local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative shall prepare a wildfire mitigation plan annually and shall submit the plan to the California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board on or before July 1 of that calendar year. Each local publicly owned electric utility and electrical cooperative shall update its plan annually and submit the update to the California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board by July 1 of each year. At least once every three years, the submission shall be a comprehensive revision of the plan.

Ask a legal question, get an answer ASAP!
Click here to chat with a lawyer about your rights.

(2) The wildfire mitigation plan shall consider as necessary, at minimum, all of the following:

(A) An accounting of the responsibilities of persons responsible for executing the plan.

(B) The objectives of the wildfire mitigation plan.

(C) A description of the preventive strategies and programs to be adopted by the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, including consideration of dynamic climate change risks.

(D) A description of the metrics the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative plans to use to evaluate the wildfire mitigation plan’s performance and the assumptions that underlie the use of those metrics.

(E) A discussion of how the application of previously identified metrics to previous wildfire mitigation plan performances has informed the wildfire mitigation plan.

(F) Protocols for disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the associated impacts on public safety, as well as protocols related to mitigating the public safety impacts of those protocols, including impacts on critical first responders and on health and communication infrastructure.

(G) Appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines. The procedures shall direct notification to all public safety offices, critical first responders, health care facilities, and operators of telecommunications infrastructure with premises within the footprint of potential deenergization for a given event.

(H) Plans for vegetation management.

(I) Plans for inspections of the local publicly owned electric utility’s or electrical cooperative’s electrical infrastructure.

(J) A list that identifies, describes, and prioritizes all wildfire risks, and drivers for those risks, throughout the local publicly owned electric utility’s or electrical cooperative’s service territory. The list shall include, but not be limited to, both of the following:

(i) Risks and risk drivers associated with design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the local publicly owned electric utility’s or electrical cooperative’s equipment and facilities.

(ii) Particular risks and risk drivers associated with topographic and climatological risk factors throughout the different parts of the local publicly owned electric utility’s or electrical cooperative’s service territory.

(K) Identification of any geographic area in the local publicly owned electric utility’s or electrical cooperative’s service territory that is a higher wildfire threat than is identified in a commission fire threat map, and identification of where the commission should expand a high fire-threat district based on new information or changes to the environment.

(L) A methodology for identifying and presenting enterprisewide safety risk and wildfire-related risk.

(M) A statement of how the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative will restore service after a wildfire.

(N) A description of the processes and procedures the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative shall use to do all of the following:

(i) Monitor and audit the implementation of the wildfire mitigation plan.

(ii) Identify any deficiencies in the wildfire mitigation plan or its implementation, and correct those deficiencies.

(iii) Monitor and audit the effectiveness of electrical line and equipment inspections, including inspections performed by contractors, that are carried out under the plan, other applicable statutes, or commission rules.

(3) The local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative shall, on or before January 1, 2020, and not less than annually thereafter, present its wildfire mitigation plan in an appropriately noticed public meeting. The local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative shall accept comments on its wildfire mitigation plan from the public, other local and state agencies, and interested parties, and shall verify that the wildfire mitigation plan complies with all applicable rules, regulations, and standards, as appropriate.

(c) The local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative shall contract with a qualified independent evaluator with experience in assessing the safe operation of electrical infrastructure to review and assess the comprehensiveness of its wildfire mitigation plan. The independent evaluator shall issue a report that shall be made available on the internet website of the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative, and shall present the report at a public meeting of the local publicly owned electric utility’s or electrical cooperative’s governing board.

(Amended (as amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 79) by Stats. 2019, Ch. 410, Sec. 3. (SB 560) Effective January 1, 2020.)