Protecting Communities From Wildfires Is Everyone’s Job
Wildfires are a growing challenge, affecting more families and businesses across the United States each year. This year began with tragic fires around Los Angeles, and in the weeks since, we’ve seen fast-moving wildfires in at least 14 states across the country.
With U.S. counties increasingly at high risk for wildfires—and not just in the West—there’s a growing need to invest in preventing wildfires before they happen and protecting affected communities from long-term costs. The public and private sectors must come together to create proactive solutions emphasizing community protection, wildfire prevention, responsible investment, and rapid recovery.
For the public sector, federal, state, and local leaders must develop and maintain whole-of-community responses that help ensure local preparedness. Policymakers also must address inadequate forest management and building and landscaping practices that heighten wildfire risk and must support sensible actions like tree trimming and maintenance that help prevent fires from starting in the first place.
In the private sector, America’s electric companies must focus on wildfire mitigation and continue to take their roles in preventing fires and protecting their customers—families and businesses—very seriously. Reducing wildfire risk and ensuring the ability to invest in wildfire prevention while keeping customer costs as low as possible must be top industry priorities. Electric companies are creating wildfire plans and making smart investments to reduce wildfire risk.
A prevention-first approach creates safer, more resilient communities and energy systems while keeping services reliable and affordable over time. Despite efforts underway, electric companies cannot be expected to prevent and reduce the impact of wildfires alone. A comprehensive national strategy is needed to address a growing national problem.
The lack of clear federal and state laws related to wildfires has created tremendous uncertainty. This uncertainty is costly for America’s electricity customers, leading insurers to pull out of high-risk areas. States have a key role in re-establishing the certainty needed to drive change at the local level.
CEA applauds states like California, Idaho, Kansas, Utah, and Wyoming, which have passed legislation to set a clear strategy for protecting against and responding to wildfires. More recently, both Arizona and Montana have taken action. We are also encouraged that states like Colorado, Hawaii, North Dakota, Oregon, and Texas are considering legislation that would set transparent and accountable standards for wildfire prevention activities.
These states are also appropriately focused on ensuring victims get the support they need without unnecessary delays or inflated costs, helping people rebuild their homes, lives, and communities. Creating a faster, more predictable liability process would eliminate wasteful, time-consuming, and expensive litigation and would help ensure that victims are the focus.
When a state lacks a straightforward process for determining liability after a wildfire, expensive litigation sometimes proceeds even before authorities have had a chance to complete the investigation to determine the cause of the fire. This was the case in Oregon, where the state’s Department of Forestry ultimately determined that powerlines were not the cause of a major fire.
While there are real fire prevention and protection costs, the growing number of billion-dollar disasters should clarify that consumers can no longer afford the price of inaction. That’s why it’s time to shift the focus to a prevention-first mindset that creates strong incentives for acting responsibly to prepare for, prevent, and protect against fires.
Bold action will save lives, protect communities, and ensure a safer future for all.
Meghan Thacker is Vice President, State and Federal Affairs for Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA).
