Energy Safety seeks feedback on draft wildfire mitigation plan update requirements

The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety held a public workshop to review draft wildfire mitigation plan (WMP) update requirements and invited stakeholders to submit written comments by 5 p.m. on Sept. 18, Energy Safety staff said.

Energy Safety described the draft chapter as a mechanism to let electrical corporations offer focused, streamlined changes to their last approved base WMPs — including redlined edits, a short WMP update document organized by six reportable categories, and supporting appendices that tie redline changes to the declared reportable updates.

Presenters said the draft chapter sets six reportable update categories that an electrical corporation must address in an update: (1) areas for continued improvement, (2) risk models, (3) new or discontinued programs, (4) approved targets, (5) projected expenditures, and (6) administrative information. "The WMP update itself ... contains the portable updates, organized by these 6 required categories," Dakota Smith said during the workshop.

Staff emphasized that each reportable update must be reflected both in the WMP update narrative and in a redlined version of the base WMP, with a new appendix listing every change and its associated reportable category. Nicole Dunlap, program manager of Energy Safety's Electrical Safety Policy Division, opened the session and said the workshop was intended to "present and discuss the draft WMP update requirements chapter of the guidelines" and to solicit feedback to inform written comments.

Risk models and the reanalysis of the highest-risk circuits drew detailed guidance. Tim Tutt…