Wildfire Mitigation – Mountain View Electric

MVEA’s Strategy to Wildfire Mitigation

MVEA is committed to protecting lives, physical assets and property against the danger of wildfires. Learn how our comprehensive plan can help us reduce the risk of wildfires in the communities we serve.

WARN: Wildfire Assessment and Resilience for Networks

MVEA Wildfire Mitigation Strategy Overview

Strategic Approaches:

Vegetation Management

Effective vegetation management is crucial for wildfire mitigation and ensuring the reliability of our electric infrastructure. Here’s how MVEA’s comprehensive approach addresses these challenges

Understanding the Risk: Trees are a significant cause of electric service interruptions nationwide, posing risks to infrastructure when they come into contact with energized conductors.
Preventive Measures: To mitigate these risks, MVEA conducts regular vegetation management practices throughout our entire overhead distribution system on a five-year rotation.
Maintaining Safe Distances: Trees are trimmed and removed to maintain an adequate distance from conductors and other infrastructure, reducing the likelihood of service interruptions.
Easement Regulations: MVEA operates within established right-of-way easements, typically 20 feet in width, ensuring that trees and vegetation are trimmed to keep designated clearance areas free of growth until the next scheduled trimming cycle. Please refer to MVEA’s Right-of-Way Clearing Guide (PDF).
Addressing Hazardous Trees: MVEA has the authority to remove any dead, weak, leaning, or hazardous trees adjacent to and outside the easement that pose risks to power lines or equipment.
Member Responsibilities: MVEA requires that trees be planted far enough away from all vaults and above-ground equipment. At maturity, a minimum 20-foot diameter around the equipment must be maintained to ensure access, and nothing should be growing underneath the lines except for grass.
Additional Resources: Explore our Tree Trimming page to learn how you can contribute to the safety and reliability of our electric infrastructure.

Operational Practices

Operating with a proactive stance on wildfire mitigation, MVEA implements a range of operational practices to ensure the safety and reliability of our electric infrastructure.

Power Pole Inspections: Ground inspections are critical to ensure safe, reliable structures for field personnel and the public. MVEA has approximately 94,000 wood poles and they are inspected on a 10-year cycle. Approximately 10,000 poles are inspected every year. Inspectors will identify decay, measure defects, and estimate the pole’s remaining strength.
Substations Inspections: Inspections of substation equipment is necessary for reliable electric service. Visual inspections of transformers, circuit breakers, CT’s, PT’s, and disconnects identify any abnormalities or failures. “Condition Based” monitoring will identify internal defects or abnormalities so that preventive action can be taken. Infrared cameras are used to detect hot spots where a loose or failing connection might be located. Additionally, checking the grounding system for loose connections on structures, panels, and other equipment will verify properly grounded.
Line Patrol: Every pole in the MVEA system is visually inspected on a three-year basis. The line patrol examines the pole structure, insulators, and conductors from the ground.
System Infrastructure Replacement: Every year, designated portions of MVEA’s system are rebuilt to help ensure safe and reliable electric service to support growth within our territory.
Wildfire Mitigation Study: In 2020, MVEA worked with a third-party consultant to identify changes to protective devices and/or settings of equipment that can further improve fire prevention in the treed area of our service territory.
Response to Red Flag Warnings: MVEA monitors Red Flag warnings issued by the National Weather Service together with support from NOAA and NICC. During this warning, work practices are adjusted (limiting hot work, driving over pastures, welding, and grinding), and circuits in the fire mitigation areas are patrolled before re-energizing the line during periods of interruptions.

Advancing Our Initiatives

As part of our commitment to enhancing safety and reliability, MVEA is implementing a series of initiatives to intensify vegetation management and response strategies for wildfire mitigation efforts.

Enhanced Tree Trimming Cycle: MVEA aims to reduce the tree trimming cycle to less than five years, intensifying our efforts in vegetation management to mitigate wildfire risk.
Utilization of Satellite Vegetation Management: Exploring innovative technologies, MVEA plans to employ satellite-based vegetation management empowered by artificial intelligence. This approach will provide comprehensive tree data including species, height, health, and proximity to high-voltage lines.
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA): MVEA is in the process of implementing a SCADA system over the next two to three years. As the system is installed this will allow substation circuit protection and devices to be changed remotely, enabling swift response to changing wildfire conditions that will react quicker to an interruption on the power line.
Drone Inspection Program: Introducing a drone inspection program, MVEA will conduct visual inspections of overhead systems and vegetation, reducing costs and enhancing safety by minimizing traditional hazardous man-hours.
Wildfire Risk Assessment: In 2023, MVEA teamed up with an outside expert to create a Wildfire Risk Model (WRM). This model, developed in the first phase, uses geographic analysis to pinpoint areas in MVEA’s service territory that are at higher risk of wildfires due to factors like landscape, human population, and natural resources. MVEA will continue this process in phase two, adding risk ratings, burn probability, fire intensity scale, and asset risk ratings provided by the consultant. This information will then be incorporated into MVEA’s Wildfire Management Plan (WMP).

How You Can Help

Join us in safeguarding our communities! Members can play a crucial role in our wildfire mitigation efforts.

Surveying Overhead Lines:

If you are served by overhead lines, survey them from the meter to the edge of your property.
Contact us to report any vegetation that:
- Touches lines, transformers, or other MVEA equipment.
- Appears singed, browned, or scorched by lines and equipment, even if not making contact at the time of reporting.
- Is fully dead.
- Shows excessive growth around poles topped by transformers.

Do not attempt to trim or clear vegetation near or touching MVEA equipment; we will mitigate it free of charge.

Planting Vegetation:

Before planting any trees or vegetation, always call 811 for safe digging.
Ensure that shrubbery and trees are planted away from lines, transformers, and other equipment.
Do not plant any tree expected to grow taller than 15 feet within the right-of-way surrounding overhead transmission lines, or any tree expected to grow beyond 10 feet within the right-of-way surrounding overhead distribution lines.
Plant trees at least 20 feet from poles and structures.

Additional Resources

How to Prepare Your Home for Wildfires (PDF) – National Fire Protection Association
A Guide to Preparing Your Home for Wildfire and Creating Defensible Space (PDF) – Colorado State Forest Center
How to Prevent Wildfires (Link) – American Red Cross