"At PG&E's weather lab in San Ramon, Scott Strenfel studies a huge digital map on the wall displaying temperatures, dew points and humidity levels across California. At a spot in Kern Hills outside of Bakersfield, wind gusts of 39 mph were forecast to hit. Hey team, thunderstorm outflow down in Kern at 3 p.m., Strenfel calls out to his fellow scientists, each behind double computer screens."
"Strenfel leads PG&E's meteorology operations and fire science team. His job is to help prevent the utility's equipment from sparking catastrophic wildfires by developing models to determine when to shut off power to customers. We want to mitigate catastrophic fires, he said, but we also don't want to overuse public safety power shut offs because we know it's our tool of last resort."
"We've got to remember that was seven years ago, and so we've made some huge strides We did not have a public safety power shut off program. And now we do. We've really built up a data science and analytics team within PG&E and the meteorology department, and so pretty much for every operational meteorologist that is forecasting the weather, I also have them paired with a data scientist who is creating these models that we use to mitigate risk."
PG&E operates a weather lab in San Ramon where meteorologists monitor temperature, dew point, humidity and wind forecasts across California. Scott Strenfel leads the meteorology operations and fire science team, calling out observed thunderstorm outflows and wind gusts to colleagues. The group develops models to assess when utility equipment could spark wildfires and when to implement targeted public safety power shutoffs. The priority is to mitigate catastrophic fires while minimizing unnecessary outages, treating shutoffs as a tool of last resort. Since the 2017 North Bay fires, PG&E has built a data science and analytics team and now pairs operational meteorologists with data scientists to improve forecasting models.
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