Another annual meeting quote that caught my attention, and that I just went back to review:

Greg Abel in responding to a question regarding Pacific Power and the Oregon 2020 wildfire suits: "The first thing we have to recognize is that there’s now going to be situations where we prioritize de energizing the assets, and that’s completely different than we’ve operated those assets, as I’ve highlighted, for 100 plus years. So we start with the culture. We had to change that. The second thing is we’ve now changed our operating systems so that we can turn off the power very quickly. If there’s a fire that’s increasing, approaching, we will turn off our systems now and we’ll go, the minute the conditions are safe again, we’ll reenergize it."

In 2020, the energized power supply not only exacerbated the fire(s), but caused them: "Some 2,500 properties were damaged by four wildfires that ignited during the Labor Day 2020 windstorm, prompting a class-action lawsuit against PacifiCorp. The company lost in the initial trial last summer involving 17 fire victims, and the latest decision covers just nine plaintiffs...Based on the jury’s findings in the first phase of the trial, PacifiCorp’s responsibility for the fires is no longer in question"(1)

Certainly a step in the right direction, but what I'm hearing is that Pacific Power is now committing to not throwing down any more lit matches AFTER a fire has started.

The September 2020 catastrophic Almeda and Obenchain fires are the ones I'm most familiar with, and I know for a certainty that each started some time after the US Weather Service had activated a rare Red Flag Warning, stating that wind, temperature, grass dryness and humidity combined to make an extreme risk of rapidly spreading and possibly uncontrollable fires.

Conversely, suddenly cutting power to the grid as a precaution "only" because of a red flag warning would not be a popular move. Hospitals, fire stations, and other public safety facilities have backup generators, bit that's not the norm for most nursing homes, or the coolers and freezers at the local grocery stores, much less (almost all) homes. And pretty much by definition, red flag days are among the hottest, driest days of the year. And, they're not *that* rare: NYC had a twelve-hour red flag about a year ago.

So, my conclusions are:
- Pacific Power is between a rock and a hard place: liable for starting fires, but presumably also liable for casualties/property damage if they're retrospectively judged for having cut the power unnecessarily
- I need to up my backup generator game

--sutton

(1): Seattle Times 24 Jan 2024 "Oregon jury slaps PacifiCorp with another $62 million damage award for 2020 wildfires"