Liberty Utilities says fast‑trip relays and pole replacements are core of 2026–28 wildfire plan

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Liberty Utilities told the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety during a July 2025 public workshop that its top wildfire‑mitigation priorities for 2026–2028 are systemwide ‘‘sensitive relay profiles’’ (fast‑trip) and extensive pole replacements, alongside continued lidar vegetation inspections and a smart‑meter rollout to improve situational awareness. "We treat our entire system as though it's a high fire threat district," said Eric Schwarzrock, president of Liberty Utilities. "That is what we focus on."

The company said it plans to implement sensitive relay profile (SRP) settings on all capable devices across its distribution system by August 2025 and that recent risk modeling indicated the SRP deployment would cut modeled wildfire risk by 74 percent compared with not having SRP in place. "The risk reduction of having this SRP program implemented across our system versus not having it all at all, it reduced our risk by 74%," said Matt Wetzel, manager of engineering.

Liberty…