Wildfire Safety Advisory Board approves 2025 recommendations to Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety

The Wildfire Safety Advisory Board on June 4 approved its 2025 recommendations to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (OEIS), asking utilities and regulators to improve how mitigation effectiveness and wildfire risk are measured.

Board members voted 7-0 to adopt the recommendations after staff presented an analysis of wildfire ignitions and utility reporting, and after the board debated standards for risk-modeling and data transparency. The board’s package asks for clearer annual tracking of mitigation effectiveness, standardized reporting units, and model-comparison requirements for utilities’ wildfire spread and consequence calculations.

Board staff said existing public datasets give useful signals but have limits. “The red books data … are only those that CAL FIRE responded to, within the state responsibility area,” staff analyst Unique said, noting that the dataset omits some federal and other local responses and can mix electrical ignitions from non-utility residential equipment. Unique summarized the staff finding: “There is no clear trend in ignitions and fires over time,” and cautioned…