Turning the Heat into Hope: Utilities Rebuild Smarter After a Year of Wildfire Challenges

As we gear up for T&D World Live 2025, I’ve been reflecting on this past year and how much has unfolded across our industry during the winter, spring, and summer. Back in January, I was sitting in the opening session of IEEE PES Grid Edge in San Diego, listening to San Diego Gas & Electric CEO Caroline Winn discuss California’s wildfire challenges and utility response — even as the Eaton and Palisades fires were burning. LADWP and SCE were directly affected, while SDG&E and PG&E initiated public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) to prevent high winds from damaging equipment and sparking additional fires in the dry conditions.

The Eaton Fire alone caused major outages for SCE — about 414,000 customers were without power on Jan. 7, and another 454,000 were under a PSPS watch at the time. LADWP had more than 28,000 customers impacted. PG&E provided mutual assistance, with its Safety and Infrastructure Protection Teams clearing brush and applying fire retardant to poles.

As I’ve said before, disasters like this tend to put utilities in the spotlight — sometimes with plenty of criticism to go around. But T&D World isn’t about finger-pointing. We know utilities adapt, learn, and rebuild. Remember the “Build Back Better” phrase? It gained prominence after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and was later used by President Biden as a theme for his campaign and administration. Over the years, we’ve seen many chances for utilities to “build back better,” and this month we’re featuring one of those stories.

Rebuilding Stronger

Our Field Editor, Amy Fischbach, reports on SCE’s massive rebuild after the Eaton Fire. In communities like Altadena and Malibu, that work has meant replacing damaged circuits, restoring substations, and accelerating plans to underground more than 150 miles of power lines in high fire risk areas.

SCE is also expanding covered conductor installations, creating Community Resiliency Zones, and adding automation to detect and repair outages faster. Backed by a $6.2 billion three-year Wildfire Mitigation Plan, the utility is blending technology, community partnerships, and streamlined permitting to speed progress — sometimes cutting timelines from years to months. While the full rebuild will take time, SCE is committed to making the grid not just operational again, but stronger and more resilient.

Tech-Driven Safety

Speaking of wildfire mitigation, we’re also featuring a story from Public Service Co. of New Mexico (PNM), thanks to Technical Editor Gene Wolf’s connections — Gene retired from PNM a few years ago. Gathen Garcia and Chris Carpenter explain how PNM is using advanced GIS-based dashboards with machine learning to give real-time insight into weather threats, grid conditions, and customer impacts during PSPS events. This technology enables faster coordination, prioritizes vulnerable customers, and replaces slow, manual processes with instant situational awareness. It’s already cutting restoration times, reducing redundant fieldwork, and improving safety.

With plans to integrate AI and push alerts to crews in the field, PNM is transforming PSPS from a last-resort disruption into a proactive, data-driven safety tool — a great example of technology in action for the utility sector.

Which brings us back to T&D World Live 2025. This year’s conference will be held Sept. 23–25 at the Renaissance Phoenix-Glendale, and the timing couldn’t be better. We need more than ever to come together, cut through the noise in consumer media, and have honest, informed discussions — not just on wildfire mitigation, but on the other big challenges and opportunities facing our industry. That’s why we launched T&D World Live four years ago: to provide a live forum that reflects what T&D World magazine has done for 75 years — give utilities a place to share stories, lessons, and best practices with each other.

This year’s program is one of the most utility-led I’ve seen in a long time. I’m especially looking forward to sessions on delivering affordability in a changing energy landscape, grid investment insights from Georgia Power, utility communications on pLTE and the Utility Network, and a panel on how current energy policy is affecting customers. With utility leaders from across the country, it’s an opportunity to tackle our toughest issues, highlight positive trends, and strengthen our professional community. The venue makes it easy to connect, with networking over breakfasts, lunches, and Q&A sessions after each presentation.

If you’re attending, please stop by the T&D World booth to say hello and meet our editors.