Bear Valley shifts to granular fire-potential modeling, expands inspections and automation

Bear Valley Electric Service presenters said the utility has revised its wildfire risk modeling and inspection programs and is piloting an asset-level risk tool to guide long-term mitigation spending.

The updates include replacing the National Fire Danger Rating System with a Technosilva Fire Potential Index (FPI) that produces reports every three hours and, as Alexis Ravnick, Presenter, Bear Valley Electric Service, said, “These data are generated by Technosilva for us with a greater than 98% uptime.” The utility also engaged Direxion Solutions to build a utility-level risk model that combines likelihood and consequence, including PSPS exposure and financial costs, into a single, unitless risk value to help prioritize hardening investments.

Why it matters: Bear Valley’s service territory is located in high-fire-threat tiers 2 and 3 and the utility said the new, more granular data lets it target circuits and assets more precisely for covered-conductor installs, vegetation work and other mitigations rather than relying on a single daily statewide rating.

Most important facts

- Modeling changes: Alexis Ravnick explained the shift away from the National Fire Danger Rating System, which produced one daily statewide report, to the Technosilva FPI tailored to Bear Valley’s territory. She said the new index gives finer spatial and temporal resolution and supports targeted PSPS (public safety power shutoff) planning. Ravnick also said the Direxion model is under review and currently outputs unitless risk values that the utility is working to translate into actionable metrics.

- Inspection and monitoring programs: Tom Chow, Presenter, Bear Valley Electric Service, described an ongoing automation and monitoring program…