First of all, I am not implying that the fires were started by power lines. However, for consideration on the electric grid infrastructure side of the equation, California follows its own standard for overhead power lines; General Order 95. The other 49 states and territories of the U.S. all follow the IEEE National Electrical Safety Code (NESC). While the NESC certainly has many shortcomings (it is a SAFETY code, not a design code), it is significantly superior to GO95. My first recommendation would be for California to adopt the NESC like the rest of the U.S. and its territories have; this would be the quick easy button that the state government could do with the stroke of a pen.
ASCE has advocated for many years in the National Report Card on America's Infrastructure in the Energy chapter (https://infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Energy-2021.pdf) under Recommendations to Raise the Grade to "Require the adoption of consensus-based standards for all overhead T&D lines, structures, and substations to ensure safety and increase reliability." This often comes as a surprise to many civil engineers and others, but ASCE has an entire set of Standards and Manuals of Practices specifically for the overhead electric grid; most of the overhead line infrastructure is all civile/structural/geotechnical engineering, not electrical. First, there is ASCE 74 which directs how to apply ASCE 7 for overhead power lines; this means wind, ice, temperature on a high level, but goes into much further detail considering heights and span lengths, which are much different than single location structures. Next, there are a whole slew of Standards and MoPs for wood poles (ASCE 141), steel poles (ASCE 48), concrete poles (ASCE 123), FRP poles (ASCE 104), and the big, beautiful (in my opinion) lattice steel towers (ASCE 10). These Standards and MoPs are written and updated by the best of the best engineers in the overhead power line industry. The NESC does reference portions of these Codes and MoPs to follow, but it specifically exempts structures less than 60 feet tall from meeting them (i.e. what we normally call "Distribution" lines and poles.) This choice of exemption by the NESC committees is political and economic. Designing distribution lines to meet proper engineering standards is time consuming I will admit; but isn't that what we as engineers are supposed to advocate? I will go so far as to say that we as engineers took the oath to uphold the safety of the public; why isn't there more outrage by engineers that these standards are not being followed?
I just did a quick search again, and "ASCE" is not mentioned anywhere in GO95. In addition to engineering-based winds (and ice in the higher elevations), this means the proper design of wood, steel, and FRP structures (not just simple "ground line moment" that is often used on distribution systems). One of the most noticeable issues that I see is that GO95 does not require that vegetation clearances be calculated under the wire blow out and structure deflections under extreme wind (i.e. Santa Anna wind). For those of you in California, can you lobby your state government to start following ASCE Standards and MoPs for your overhead line designs? Keep in mind that this will NOT suddenly strengthen your electric grid overnight and will not prevent fires immediately as this will not require that everything be rebuilt. That will take a generation to change as poles and lines that are replaced or newly built should begin to follow these engineering-based practices. But every day adopting these Standards and MoPs is delayed means another day added to when your electric grids will be more reliable, resilient, and wildfire preventive.
I believe that this is one way to start speaking the matter to improve things going forward as you requested.
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Otto J. Lynch, P.E.,F.SEI,F.ASCE
President and CEO
Power Line Systems
otto@...------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-08-2025 12:28 PM
From: Len Andersen
Subject: California Fires ASCE response!
Media says 16000 structure destroyed in California fires . As a member of the ASCE and worked with members of The American Institute of Architects: AIA I believe it is good time to start speaking the matter to improve things going forward . Hope to get discussion going . Live in LA area for 2 about two years.
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Len Andersen
American Society of Civil Engineers events in New York City -Graduate of the University of Arizona BSChE .
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