NorthWestern Energy, Pacific Gas and Electric, Xcel, Black Hills Energy, Hawaiian Electric Company and Public Service of New Mexico or PNM are all responsible for massive blazes often causing billions in damages.
Back in 2021 this blog covered the creation of Firebreak Management, a Bozeman, Montana startup that clears woody debris from private properties built in the wildland urban interface or WUI. That same year power lines owned by NWE caused a wildfire that destroyed most of Denton, Montana.
Downhill off Bridger Canyon Drive, a burned tractor, caked in soot, displays a sign for vehicles passing by: “State Farm is Not a Good Neighbor. They Do Not Pay Their Claims.” When Sandy and Paul Strong bought their house up Bridger Canyon in 2022, they didn’t expect to spend so much time thinking about trees. On a sunny mid-April afternoon, Jessica Braun was up at the Strong’s property, touting a chainsaw and a drip torch. Her co-workers were felling trees behind the house, and the land was dotted with scorch marks from smoking piles of burned debris. Now, they are logging, and the wood will be sold to a timber mill to help cover the cost of the work. A skidder will come to take the logs this summer. ['We'd be the torch': Bridger Canyon homeowners work to reduce fire risk]Xcel Energy is just one utility being bankrupted by insurance companies looking for culprits in human-caused disasters now that it's been determined all-day hurricane force winds drove the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Colorado. And they're not small fires either as the Smokehouse Creek Fire Complex spread over 1.2 million acres of the Republican Texas panhandle where sixty counties face disaster declarations.
The pole identified as the cause of the fire had been suffering from decay, and an Xcel contractor designated it in need of replacement, the report said, citing testimony from an Xcel executive. The report, issued Wednesday, also found that Texas does little to regulate the inspection, maintenance and replacement of utility poles. [Texas Lawmakers Fault Xcel Power Pole in State’s Largest Fire]Utilities, insurers, county commissions, lenders and developers need to be held accountable for building tinder boxes packed so closely together that homeowners can see into each others bathrooms. Counties should be able to fine property owners who fail to create defensible space or clear dry fuels. Well-funded local and volunteer fire departments could conduct prescribed fires and burn road ditches to create buffers where contract fire specialists don’t exist.
Self-reliance or moral hazard?
A new study quantifies how much worse the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome and wildfires were because of global warming. Short version: A hell of a lot worse. Details from my @latimes colleague @phila_lex: https://t.co/LpQQu4HJSr
— Sammy Roth (@Sammy_Roth) April 22, 2024
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