SoCal Edison officials are planning on shutting down power in high fire risk areas in Santa Clarita if weather conditions become severe enough.

In December of 2017, the Thomas Fire — at the time, the largest fire in California’s history — and the Rye Fire were both sparked by power equipment.

To help prevent future wildfires from starting, SoCal Edison has been updating their equipment and policies to decrease the chance of sparking a fire, according to officials.

“Eight of the last 20 most destructive fires in California have been since 2015, and five of them were in 2017 alone,” said David Song, public information officer with SoCal Edison. “Since 2014, we have replaced 54,000 wooden poles with composite poles in high fire areas. We have about 1.4 million poles in our territory.”

Currently, Edison has different Emergency Operation Centers throughout their territory where they have staff and meteorologists observing high fire risk area details such as wind speeds, wind gust, temperature, relative humidity and what type of vegetation is currently present in these areas.

When the Emergency Operation Centers notice severe weather conditions in high fire risk areas, Edison will send out field personnel to inspect the area so that Edison is not relying entirely on their equipment, according to officials.

Then if weather conditions are severe enough in a particular area for an extended amount of time, Edison plans on conducting a public safety power shut-off.

“If there are extreme fire conditions, this is an operational practice of last resort,” said Song.

Edison personnel are able to detect if conditions will be severe enough to shut power off a few days prior to when the shutdown will take place, he said.

If Edison feels it is a possibility to shut power off, the company plans to be in contact with its customers, keeping them up-to-date whether the shut-off will happen or not.

“When power is shut off, it isn’t going to affect entire cities,” Song said. “We will just shut down a circuit or part of a circuit.”

There are approximately 200 to 2,000 customers per circuit, according to officials.

If Edison plans on shutting down power, officials noted they will also be in contact with all their essential customers — such as hospitals and customers that rely on medical equipment — so that they can prepare themselves for the power shut-off.
The amount of time power can be out for Santa Clarita residents depends on the weather conditions surrounding them, said Song.

Once weather conditions are safe, residents may still have a delay for when power will be restored.

“Once conditions are back to normal, we will inspect our equipment to make sure nothing was damaged,” Song said. “If we come across damaged wires, that could delay power being restored to customers up to 12 hours or more.”

Although the public safety power shut-offs are an option for Edison, it isn’t something they plan to do frequently, according to officials.

“I don’t see us shutting down power throughout our territory more than 10 times a year,” Song said.

Edison officials ask that all their customers check and make sure their contact information is current so that they may be notified of any power shut-offs.

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