How Much Wildfire Mitigation Does the Northeast Need Right Now?

The Northeast had a record-dry October in 2024 after one of its driest Septembers, and more than 400 fires followed across the region. The largest burned 5,000 acres on the New York–New Jersey border, and New York issued a statewide burn ban that ran through November. Utilities here are now planning as though it won't be the last. Starting this year, Massachusetts regulators require electric utilities to report on system wildfire risk in their annual reliability filings. While to a lesser extent than with western utilities, insurers and credit rating agencies are starting to factor wildfire risk into their underwriting as well.

That leaves Northeast utilities with the question of what to do, and in which order. Protection settings, including non-reclose during fire weather, can be in place within a season. So can the situational awareness that tells operators when conditions warrant them. Undergrounding takes years and runs to roughly $3 million a mile. Which comes first depends on the shape the risk profile is taking within a utility’s service area. National Grid measured its New York system asset by asset: 1% of feeders carry 35% of the wildfire risk. Others are working from outage history and vegetation data, and are setting up their operational readiness in case of a future potential fire weather day.

Three Northeast utilities will take up these questions. How does each one understand its wildfire risk today, and where does it expect that risk to head? What have they put in place so far, what did it buy them, and what did it cost in reliability and crew time? And how does a utility know when operational measures have gone as far as they can?