Los Angeles, California – Millions of Southern Californians should prepare for more frequent and potentially longer power outages this fire season, as utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) tightens its safety protocols amid worsening wildfire conditions.
Citing increasingly extreme weather patterns, including hurricane-force winds and historically dry vegetation, Edison officials say they’ve recalibrated their risk thresholds for Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS)—a controversial but increasingly common tactic to prevent wildfires sparked by power lines.
“For 2025, we have increased the sensitivity of some of our settings, and it does have the potential to increase the frequency of PSPS events across our system,” said Thomas Brady, principal manager at SCE…