Promoting Community Wildfire Resilience in High-Risk Areas: Examining Opportunities for Public Utilities and Insurance

Principal Investigator: Amanda Stasiewicz

IAB Mentor: Brian D’Agnosto or appointed SDGE employee  & Tom Rolinski (SCE)

Individuals living in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) are increasingly exposed to wildfire risk as fuel and weather conditions favor more wildfire potential and the WUI continues to expand, meaning more people are occupying fire-prone areas [1]. In California and other parts of the fire-prone US West, there are two unifying topics of debate and speculation—public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) events and wildfire insurance. This research project utilizes a 1-year timeline to explore WUI resident experiences with and impacts from (1) PSPS events, (2) utility mitigation teams (e.g., hazard tree removal), (3) and insurance coverage.