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Advisory board adopts risk‑modeling guidance, urges caution using absolute modeled risk
Summary
The Wildfire Safety Advisory Board unanimously adopted staff 'Considerations of Extremes and Utility Risk Models,' urging Energy Safety to implement 2025 recommendations, avoid over-relying on absolute modeled values, require expected-and-tail risk comparisons, and test alternatives to wildfire spread models.
The Wildfire Safety Advisory Board voted unanimously on June 3 to adopt 'Considerations of Extremes and Utility Risk Models,' a staff report that documents modeling limitations and recommends changes to how utilities and regulators use risk and consequence models.
The board added a minor amendment asking staff to insert an explicit citation to the board's 2025 risk‑modeling recommendations in the final report. The motion carried on a 6–0 roll‑call vote.
The report contains four action‑oriented recommendations for Energy Safety: fully implement the board's 2025 risk‑model recommendations; exercise caution when basing decisions on absolute model outputs given known validation limits; require utilities to present both expected (mean) and tail (maximum) values when ranking circuits so extreme scenarios' influence is visible; and require testing or reporting of supplements or alternatives to standard wildfire spread models when calculating consequence under extreme conditions.
"The committee's goal is to ensure that the guidelines require utilities to demonstrate not just that their models produce outputs, but that those outputs are reliable, appropriately validated, and accompanied by honest characterization of their limitations," the committee told the board.
The committee also pushed for improved data traceability—stable circuit identifiers, crosswalks when utilities rename circuits, and transparent documentation of model changes—so regulators and stakeholders can follow how modeling and mitigation decisions change over time.
The board and staff noted that the report reflects a public comment period (three weeks) during which Technosila submitted comments; staff met with the company, made clarifying edits, and documented responses in the report's section six.
Next steps: the board asked staff to add a citation to the 2025 recommendations and publish the finalized report on the WSAB docket. Energy Safety will consider the committee's recommendations as it revises WMP guidance and modeling expectations for utilities.
Ending: The board thanked the risk model committee and staff for their work and adopted the report to help guide agency rulemaking and utility practice on modeling extreme wildfire conditions.
