Preparing for peak wildfire season in San Diego amid the pandemic

Fighting wildfires has always been difficult but as the weather heats up and the 2020 fire season moves into high gear, the COVID-19 pandemic adds another set of complicated — and unpredictable — factors into the mix.

The outbreak has forced local officials to change their fire-fighting strategy and consider other alterations. The wildfire mitigation team at San Diego Gas & Electric has made its own adjustments as part of a larger effort to reduce the effects of dreaded power shutoffs to backcountry residents who are often vulnerable when fire conditions escalate.

The pandemic has "definitely had a big effect," said Cal Fire and San Diego County Fire Authority Chief Tony Mecham.

First of all, how can crews battle fast-moving wildfires while practicing social distancing protocols to avoid contracting the virus?

"It's impossible," Mecham said.

Cal Fire deploys "hand crews" of about 20 that construct fire lines in steep terrain and "strike teams" of highly trained wildland fire fighters.

"Strike teams are anywhere from 15 to 20 people and there's just no way that you're going to keep those 20 people social distancing," Mecham said. "Same thing with a 20-person hand crew. When you're running a chainsaw with your partner, you're just going to be close."

Instead of socially distancing individual fire fighters, officials have decided, at least for this fire season, to isolate teams from one another.

That way if members of one team get sick, Mecham said, "we can go quarantine them, but they haven't been interacting with everybody else ... If, say, one hand crew gets it (the virus), then I only lose 20 people."

It's similar to a strategy SDG&E employed when it sequestered some essential grid control operators in the first couple of months of the outbreak. Teams of six employees each worked 12-hour shifts for 14 straight days to keep electricity flowing to homes and vital commercial operations, such as hospitals. The crews were kept separated, with each employee assigned an RV to sleep in to reduce the chances of contracting COVID-19.

Other changes

Cal Fire crews working on active fires will also start off their days differently.

Rather than assembling fire camp personnel at one spot (such as a baseball field) for morning briefings, "we're looking at much more aggressive use of technology to put a wireless bubble over our fire camp so people could potentially log in on their mobile devices," Mecham said. "Rather than having to walk over to the briefing, they can watch it on their mobile devices."

Prior to the pandemic, crew members were already medically monitored but Mecham said officials are considering mandatory temperature checks before anyone comes into a fire camp.

Another issue: What to do amid concerns about the virus with residents who have been told to evacuate their homes in case of a threatening wildfire?

Mecham said about 80 percent of evacuees usually get their own hotel rooms or stay with family or friends "but the people that use shelters are our most vulnerable populations. A lot of them have medical conditions."

Putting them in, say, a high school gymnasium may not be a wise option. San Diego County's Office of Emergency Services and the Red Cross have been looking into the issue and Mecham said a decision may come in the next month or so.

"If we have a red flag (warning) coming up, maybe the county goes ahead and rents 400 hotel rooms ahead of time, just so we have a place to move those people," Mecham said.

De-energizing lines

Shutting off power has been a fact of life for many in San Diego County's backcountry during wildfire season. Known as Public Safety Power Shutoffs, or PSPS, they are used by utilities to de-energize lines when it's extremely windy and dry to avoid a power line falling and igniting a wildfire.

Shutoffs are especially hard on customers dependent on medical devices powered by electricity and rural residents who need electricity to pump well water on their property.

In 2019, SDG&E shut off power four times, affecting about 27,000 customers at peak deployment.

The utility expects to reduce the number of shutoffs in 2020 by 30 percent — provided this year's weather conditions are roughly the same as last year's.

"We've learned so much in 2017, 2018 and 2019 from Public Safety Power Shutoffs that we understand it so much better," said Brian D'Agostino, SDG&E's director of fire science and climate adaptation. "Now we can really target ways to decrease the number of customers impacted."

Since 2007 when downed power lines in high winds ignited the devastating Witch, Guejito and Rice wildfires that killed 10 people and destroyed more than 1,700 homes, SDG&E has made a significant investment in reducing fire risk in its service territory.

The utility has spent nearly $2 billion in ratepayer funds on wildfire mitigation programs since 2007. This year, SDG&E will spend between $150 million and $200 million more than it did last year.

Spending will include:

adding 30 more weather stations this yearlaying down 135 miles of underground lines over the next three yearsinstalling 30 more "switches" that can divide power into sections, allowing SDG&E grid managers to turn power on and off like a circuit breaker in your home, andoperating four microgrids this year and seven within three years so that areas affected by PSPS can function independentlySDG&E has also bolstered its fleet of helitankers and helicopters to douse wildfires and patrol lines in rugged areas that cannot be hiked. The utility now has an additional Black Hawk helicopter at the ready when the other chopper is undergoing maintenance.

The effects of the pandemic have forced SDG&E to make some changes in the run-up to the heart of wildfire season.

The utility had scheduled six in-person town halls in backcountry locations but in order to adhere to social distancing, will now host four webinars instead, the first of which will be held next Tuesday and Thursday. SDG&E will email customers with the details on how to take part.

SDG&E activates 10 Community Resource Centers during power shutoffs in places such as Julian and Ramona for people to get water and snacks, receive up-to-date information on outages and charge their phones. With pandemic guidelines in mind, the utility is developing contingency plans that include floor markings spaced six feet apart and using the centers as drive-throughs to hand people what they need.

The utility also plans on giving out solar-powered phone chargers that enable customers to use their car batteries to charge their computers.

All of these programs come at a financial cost.

At a California state Senate hearing earlier this month, the president of the California Public Utilities Commission said SDG&E's rates have tracked higher than its investor-owned utility rivals Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison largely due to SDG&E's "robust investment in wildfire mitigation after the 2007 wildfires in its service territory."

However, the commission said PG&E and Edison are expected to step up their wildfire prevention spending. All three investor-owned utilities are budgeted to spend $15 billion through 2023.

SDG&E has not experienced a repeat of the 2007 disaster.

"When I started here in 2007, and you looked at the largest fires in California history, San Diego was all over that list," said D'Agostino, who heads a weather team that counts 14 full-time employees. "Now here we are through all of this investment and San Diego is no longer in that top five. How do we put a price on that?"

How 2020 is shaping up

As for the wildfire outlook this year, weather conditions have so far offered a mixed bag.

Healthy amounts of rain in April helped but D'Agostino said the red tide last month that led to the colorful luminescence at local beaches warmed water temperatures. That decreased the marine layer and dried out grass across the area.

"Overall, we're looking at normal fire activity through the summer," D'Agostino said. "By the time we get to fall, we do expect our fuels to be critically dry, like they are every year."

A string of brush fires have broken out in recent weeks, including a pair around Camp Pendleton. A fire ignited June 11 off of Skyline Drive between Jamul and Lyons Valley that burned 100 acres and threatened some homes before crews, helicopters and air tankers beat the blaze back.

Cal Fire's Mecham said he's worried going into every wildfire season, adding that the relative calm San Diego experienced in 2019 — in sharp contrast to the fires and shutoffs seen in Northern California — was "an anomaly."

"I don't expect that we are going to get into really peak burning conditions until about mid-July, towards the end of August," he said. "When you look at the hillsides in San Diego, 60 to 70 percent of that brush is dead. It's beyond life cycle ... so we could have a significant fire today if we had the wind behind it."

In the meantime, Mecham encourages homeowners who may be hanging around their houses during the pandemic to use that extra time to clear brush and establish defensible space of about 100 feet from their homes and structures.

"Don't wait until September when the winds are blowing 70 mph to decide, 'Hey, maybe I should go out and do my clearance,'" Mecham said. "Have a plan and know what you're going to do."

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