Good intent, same outcomes

I am a firefighter in the foothills and red flag warning days when fuels are dry keep me up at night. I appreciate Excel trying to mitigate some wildfire caused by electrical hazards but, ultimately, it is merely an indemnity issue for them and does very little to eliminate wildfires. I know this because I responded to numerous fires that day caused by power lines that were "deenergized"...that weren't.

What happens when utility companies kill power is that thousands of people fire up their generators. When there are thousands of generators backfeeding the lines they are carrying just as much current bit with zero accountability. Furthermore, this causes a huge hazard for our firefighters as normally we call Excel or CORE if we have a power issue and they quickly mitigate it for us. When thousands of individual homeowners are sending current back into the grid neither first responders nor utility companies have any control of it. In the end, the fires start anyway but businesses lose income, people lose groceries and life becomes harder for everyone.