Hawaii PUC probing utility’s role in deadly Lahaina wildfire
The state Public Utilities Commission has issued more than 30 information requests totaling nearly 200 questions to Hawaiian Electric as part of an ongoing investigation into the Aug. 8, 2023, Lahaina wildfire, which killed 102 people and caused more than $5.5 billion in damage.
The PUC “has been and remains committed” to investigating the tragic wildfire, according to a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about a nondocketed compliance investigation opened Jan. 23 regarding the role that Hawaiian Electric’s operations and equipment played in the Lahaina and Upcountry Maui wildfires on Aug. 8, 2023, the Mililani Mauka fire on Oct. 30 and the Nov. 14 Waianae fire.
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The commission is reviewing the cause and origin report from the Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives that concluded the Lahaina fire started when downed power lines reenergized in overgrown vegetation that violated the county fire code near a utility pole off of Lahainaluna Road.
“There are requests for Hawaiian’s Electric’s procedures, records and forms, which cover issues such as pole integrity, compliance with National Electric Safety Code, operational protocols such as for de-energizing and re-energizing circuits and power lines, and inspections of transmission and distribution infrastructure, among others,” Deborah Kwan, communications officer for the commission, told the Star-Advertiser. “Along with information learned from other agencies’ reports, the PUC plans to use the data acquired through its information requests to develop technical requirements applicable to the State’s electric utilities.”
The commission is also tracking and assisting how regulated utilities prevent and prepare for wildfires and other natural hazards.
The PUC issued “guidance orders” to Hawaiian Electric and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative regarding their wildfire mitigation plans, which are required to be filed by January with the PUC.
Kwan said the commission is also monitoring progress on Hawaiian Electric’s “inspection programs and resilience measure implementation” in response to Maui and subsequent wildfires and required regulated utilities to file Natural Hazard Mitigation Plans in August to address utility preparedness for natural-hazard events.
The commission is maintaining a “regulated utility customer disconnection moratorium” on Maui during the pendency of the governor’s emergency proclamations on the Maui wildfires.
“We are committed to cooperating fully with all agencies, including the PUC,” Darren Pai, HECO’s manager of external communications, told the Star-Advertiser. “We all share a common interest in learning from the fire and ensuring something like it never happens again.”
The PUC’s investigation of the Maui wildfires is housed in a nondocketed case, which is “primarily used as an information repository and cannot be used for decision-making.”
It is a starting point for the PUC to “develop the appropriate scoping for docketed proceedings” where decision-making and party intervention may take place.
On the PUC’s website categorizing its compliance investigation of the electrical utility, there are 20 entries and 1,181 pages of filed responses from Hawaiian Electric.
The PUC was established in 1913. It regulates 2,014 entities, including all “chartered, franchised, certificated, and registered” public utility companies that provide electricity, gas, telecommunications, private water and sewage, and motor and water carrier transportation services in Hawaii.
Vegetation management
The origin of the Lahaina fire was the overgrown vegetation at and surrounding utility pole 25 off of Lahainaluna Road, according to the case and origin report released Oct. 2.
The cause of the fire was the reenergization of broken utility lines, which caused the ejection of molten metallic material, or sparks, “to fall to the base of pole 25, igniting the unmaintained vegetation below.”
“Additionally, the arcing and severing of the energized overhead power line between poles 25 and 24 resulted in that power line falling to the ground, subsequently igniting vegetation below,” read the report, which deemed the deadliest U.S. wildfire of the past century “accidental.”
Hawaiian Electric’s easements generally “do not grant the Company the right to trim ground level vegetation” that is not in the way of lines and facilities, the utility said.
The utility does clear ground when needed for maintenance and equipment replacement. Landowners, “public or private, are responsible” for maintenance of the low-lying vegetation on their land, according to the Oct. 1 response.
Hawaiian Electric said it is “evaluating options to implement a vegetation clearing program” similar to the California Public Resources Code that applies to poles that carry electrical infrastructure.
In a set of responses to the PUC dated Oct. 1, Hawaiian Electric responded to questions about inspections of polls E-7A and poll P24, “immediately after the fire and thereafter” and whether the utility had used fire-retardant mesh or paint on poles in Lahaina before the fires.
The utility performed “basic visual assessments” of polls 24 and 25 in the field immediately after the fires. Poll 24 was replaced and poll 25 was further inspected as part of civil litigation efforts by attorneys involved with the civil actions, according to the utility’s responses.
Poll 24 was first installed in 1994 and needed to be replaced after the fire.
“Evaluations of loading on Pole E-7A, Pole 24, and Pole 25 as of August 8, 2023 are being undertaken pursuant to Hawaiian Electric’s investigation into the Lahaina fires … under attorney-client privilege.”
Hawaiian Electric may have experimented with fire-retardant paint prior to Aug. 8, 2023, but there are no formalized records of it, according to the utility.
After the fatal fires, the utility hired a contractor to utilize fire-retardant paint on 78 poles in Lahaina but stopped as other wildfire mitigation measures “such as inspections, pole replacements, pole upgrades, implementation of fast-trip (settings), pole upgrades, installation of CAL-Fire (California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention) approved fuses and lightning arrestors” were installed on all islands.
Before the deadly fires, Hawaiian Electric installed fire mesh on transmission wooden polls in Maalaea.
“The company is currently installing fire mesh when replacing transmission and distribution wood poles in all high wildfire areas,” read the response to commissioners.
Reenergizing lines
At about 6:01 a.m. Aug. 8, 2023, the Lahaina-Lahainaluna transmission line was reenergized following a visual inspection by utility personnel confirming the transmission line was “up and intact.”
The commission asked Hawaiian Electric, given “the fact that 60 mph wind gusts” were recorded by Maui firefighters at 6:42 a.m., to please “discuss the Company’s decision criteria for re-energizing lines during high winds.”
The utility responded by saying that its “reclose blocking procedure” could be triggered by either a red-flag warning or a high-wind warning. Reclose blocking prevents automatic reenergization after a short.
That procedure disabled automatic reclosing on a preset list of circuit breakers and reclosers, and “if one of those lines tripped offline while the protocol was in effect, the line was manually re-energized” only after it had been inspected and found “clear and intact,” the utility said.
The protocol went into effect Aug. 7, 2023, and the lines along the Lahaina-Lahainaluna transmission line were tripped offline at 5 a.m. Aug. 8, 2023. It was reenergized at 6:01 a.m. following a visual inspection by utility personnel.
