While winter storms relieved many communities facing drought conditions and the threat of wildfires, rainfall has led to extensive vegetation growth throughout Southern California Edison’s service area. Now that grasses and other plants are drying out, there is an increased risk of wildfires. State agencies continue to urge residents in high fire risk areas to prepare.

“The need for Public Safety Power Shutoffs in 2023 will depend on the weather and fire conditions that develop later this year, and we must be ready to respond,” said Tom Brady, principal manager in SCE’s Business Resiliency group. “Now that hotter summer weather is drying out the grasses and other vegetation, and when combined with high wind conditions, this could increase the risk of dangerous wildfires and the need for shutoffs.”

SCE continues strengthening its grid to increase reliability and lessen the need for PSPS outages, a measure of last resort when communities face dangerous wildfire conditions. These improvements can also help minimize the number of customers affected by a PSPS event.

To remain prepared to respond, SCE’s PSPS Incident Management Teams completed their annual requalification training and exercises in May.

The exercises simulated an escalating Santa Ana wind event impacting about 200,000 customers in eight counties. The scenario was developed with input from public safety partners, some of whom participated as evaluators and provided feedback. The teams collaborated and worked to address ongoing changes and increasing complexity in the exercise scenario.

Team members were tested on their ability to send out all necessary notifications to customers and public safety partners to provide sustained situational awareness and minimize the number of customers that could be affected. Teams also simulated efforts to engage and support impacted communities and customers, including those with access and functional needs.

“The opportunity to observe SCE’s full-scale PSPS exercise provided valuable insight regarding the detailed preparedness initiatives and response actions that SCE puts into PSPS events,” said Daniel Cohen, Emergency Response coordinator with the Calleguas Municipal Water District. “As critical infrastructure customers, we appreciate the continued efforts by SCE to forge stronger relationships with public safety partners, and reduce the impacts of PSPS incidents, so we can continue to provide essential services.”

Observers included essential services providers, like the water district, local government officials, San Diego Gas & Electric staff and representatives from state agencies, including the California Public Utilities Commission, Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety and CAL FIRE.

“The drill tested the team’s ability to manage the wildfire risk posed by the weather while limiting the impact to our customers and public safety partners — always a difficult balance,” said Cameron McPherson, SCE principal manager of PSPS Operations. “We were also grateful for the participation and input of staff from multiple public safety partner organizations and first responder and emergency management experts — their input is key to us improving our response.”

The in-person exercise also included a tour for public safety partners of SCE’s Emergency Operations Center and live demonstrations of a Community Crew Vehicle, Mobile Command Center, Situational Awareness Center and grid hardening mitigations.

Beyond the training and drills, SCE continues to educate customers about PSPS, support programs available to customers living in high fire risk areas and the need to be ready for emergencies and outages, no matter the cause. Newsletters are being mailed to customers in high fire risk areas and are available online, in all prevalent languages, at SCE’s Wildfire Communications Center.

For more information on SCE’s wildfire mitigation efforts, visit edison.com/wildfiresafety.