In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows -- those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.
Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that with power lines causing so many fires in the United States: “We definitely have a new pattern, we just don’t have a new safety regime to go with it.”
PG&E also announced in 2021 it would bury 10,000 miles of electrical line. It buried 180 miles in 2022 and is on pace to do 350 miles this year. Some don’t fault Hawaiian Electric for its comparative lack of action because it has not faced the threat of wildfires for as long. And the utility is not at all alone in continuing to use bare metal conductors high up on power poles.It's been only a few years that utilities have been willing to preemptively shut off people's power to prevent fire and the disruptive practice is not yet widespread.
As for the poles, in the 2019 Hawaiian Electric document, the company said its 60,000 poles, nearly all wood, were vulnerable because they were already old and Hawaii is in a “severe wood decay hazard zone.” The company said it had fallen behind in replacing wood poles because of other priorities and warned of a “serious public hazard” if the poles “failed.”
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