Turning Down the Heat: Using Drones to Mitigate Wildfire Risk

Wildfires pose a significant threat to utility infrastructure and demand innovative approaches to mitigation as climate change increases their frequency. This talk explores cutting-edge technologies and strategies that enhance wildfire preparedness and response within the utility sector. Attendees will learn about the integration of drones and remote operations in monitoring and safeguarding utility assets. Real-world case studies will illustrate approaches from the field and highlight best practices that reduce wildfire risks and improve the safety and reliability of essential services.

Well, thank you. I know it's the, getting to the nearing the end here, and, I appreciate everybody still, still showing up and participating.

Really appreciate, the the event today, and, looking really forward to this session.

It's very timely. I feel like we're in a season in in the midst of a wildfire season right now that has been really, really challenging. So, anyways, my name is Seth Hutcherson. I lead our utilities practice here at Skydio, and really excited to be hosting this session today.

We've got two experts, and they bring very unique, very, very unique experiences. And so, I'm gonna introduce, both Mike Spangler and Alex Ramirez, to the stage here today. Mike is, is been with Idaho Power for many, many years and Alex with AEP. So to kick it off, I'm gonna have, Mike go ahead and do quick introductions.

Yeah. Hi, everybody. I'm Mike Spangler. I work for Idaho Power Company.

I've been with them for thirty eight years, and, I had our UAS, program, managed that. And, but long career through mostly power delivery side.

So actually starting as a custodian at the company, working my way up through transformer mechanic, substation work, lines work, line crew, power quality.

So a broad area that I've worked under. And, for probably the last five and a half, six years, I've been leading, the UAS program here at the company.

Fantastic.

And, Alex, you wanna introduce yourself?

Thank you. Yes. Alex Ramirez. I'm part of the AEP Texas group.

We're glad to be here. We got, part of the crew here also on the state, on the, with the audience, joining us today. Those are the guys that make, make stuff happen. And so very, very blessed to be working with a fine team.

My role is a vice president of customer experience. And in this role, what we've done at AUP Texas, is pretty interesting. So we have the customer facing group coupled with the technology solutions team. And so we often look for ways to improve that customer experience, make sure we're delivering value to our communities.

My background is primarily on the distribution operations engineering side. And so I started with the company with the engineering group, moved over to resource planning, work scheduling, spent some time at the regulatory side, and, managed one of the five districts at AUP Texas. So, through my career of twenty years, I've learned quite a bit. And so, I'm, I'm pleased to be here with you all to share the experience and the journey that we're going through at AUP Texas.

Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it, Alex. You both bring a very unique set of experiences.

Mike, as a program manager, I know that you've been in the field for for many, many years, and I think your, expertise with how you're mitigating, you know, the the wildfire challenges in your, are are gonna bring a unique set of experiences. Same with Alex. Spent a lot of time, in operations and super excited. It's obviously a hot topic. No no pun intended.

So I'm gonna set the stage a bit here. We, really, there's been a number of research done. And over the years, you know, a lot has gone into understanding the impact of wildfires.

When you look at it, you know, since, excuse me, United Nations, produced a report back in twenty twenty twenty twenty two that really outlined the concerns and challenges that we're faced globally, around wildfire mitigation.

And when we think about this, we're seeing, FEMA since nineteen eighty. Statistically, we're seeing a hundred and twenty five percent year over year growth in wildfire activities. So staggering growth.

And just this year, more than seven million acres in the US has been impacted by wildfires.

So this is a unique, and long standing, challenge within the business. And I think for today's purposes, we're gonna do a a review on what we call the five r's, and really bring it to life with both of your, expertise in your organizations.

And we're gonna start by, introducing the five r's with the review stage.

And, Mike, you know, I think you've got a really unique, set of experiences with Idaho Power, around kind of enhancement of situational awareness. So I'm gonna lead off to you and, and let you kinda share your your background on how you're looking to, impact this.

Yeah. So it's kinda been a really interesting year for us in Idaho. We have just been on fire. It's it's, been terrible.

Lot of lot of acres burned. We've lost a lot of our infrastructure to fire, and, it's just been a really smoky, smoky hot summer.

But we're gonna talk about a lot of different technology, today. And, but I wanted to start out with what really drives this as our our wildfire man mitigation plan. Yeah. And the thing about it is we got all this tech. We've got this plan, but it's the people that we have, the the team of people that put this plan together, the team of people that execute this plan, is what really makes it work. But some of the things we do, we use wildfire, modeling software to, understand what our level of risk is in those areas. And then from that, we've currently, have a hundred and forty nine, wildfire zones.

And then from those, wildfire zones, we create daily, FPI or fire potential index, weather forecast on six hour blocks, twenty four hours a day. These these weather forecasts for every hundred and forty nine zones are coming out. So our field personnel know how to how to respond and and what they can and can't do out in the field. But a lot of this stems from our use of technology such as drones, weather stations, assessing the, field field conditions.

And we use, about a hundred and two hundred and thirty, Idaho Power owned weather stations, by the end of the year, to give us some of that. And then we also use wildfire detection cameras, to get some of this, kind of real time situational awareness.

That's very unique. You know, you've got a broad, vast area that you're trying to cover, and it's very rugged. And I'm sure you're obviously trying to enhance that with new technologies.

So Yeah. It's a really Now that that's one thing I wanna I probably should touch on real quickly is our service territory has everything from high elevation mountains to large desert, arid deserts, to irrigated cropland, and we're basically stretched from eastern Oregon, all the way to east, of Idaho and up into the central part of the state. So really diverse, terrain.

Yeah. No. That's that's a good point. Alex, how about you guys? How do you enhance your your, situational awareness?

Similarly, the AEP Texas footprint is pretty vast.

We cover a good part of, South Texas and West Texas. Our footprint extends over ninety seven thousand square miles.

We serve, just north of three hundred and fifty cities, in the state of Texas, a lot of rural communities. And so companies pursuing a similar modeling, tool like the one Mike just described. What what I'll share or add is the fact that there's good public datasets out there that give us intel to understand just the threat level across the state. For those of you that are just starting the journey, there's good information out there provided, by, USDA and also other forest service agencies.

And so, anyway, if you if you have an if you don't have something like that, in in your company, I encourage you to go out there and just explore the public information that's out there. And it's typically an output of fire simulator, models, twenty years worth of historical data. What we're also doing is incorporating current climatology conditions to better understand trends or maybe shifts, right, from what we experienced in years past. And so I just wanted to, share that with the group. In terms of situational awareness, we're enhancing that continuously. We have, sensors, currently out there on our distribution system, And what we're doing is expanding the deployment of these sensors to better understand the condition of the assets. And so that gives us intel on how well, our infrastructure is performing.

And comparing that against the threat levels that are identified across the state, then it helps us prioritize. Right? And it builds the sense of urgency to make sure that we go out there and inspect, proactively.

The goal is to identify the issues before failure occurs. Mhmm. So what we're doing is we're pursuing a deployment of three specific technologies.

One of them is, studying the vegetation and, using satellite imagery to better understand how that, currently sits across our footprint. And a few things that we're trying to find there is not just, risk trees or vegetation that's close to the lines, but also fields that could serve as a fuel, for, wildfires. And so the whole idea behind that is that we use that intelligence to couple with our current inspection practices and make sure that we pay, you know, unique and special attention to the areas that are the most exposed.

Let's see.

Other technology that we're working on is is additional aligned sensors that study the radio frequency change. And so the whole concept behind this is before a permanent fault occurs, we wanna be able to get to it. Right? And so gathering that intelligence and then prioritizing, will be a critical, activity for us.

And, obviously, what makes all this work is drone technology.

We don't have folks to be out there all the time, and so what we what we're working on is developing a scheme where we're able to use drone technology to get out there with a higher frequency.

And not just on scheduled missions, but also on demand.

I'll pause there. That's that's what we have in motion, and we're gonna be actively pursuing all these three programs, in twenty twenty five. That's that's our plan.

That's fantastic. You have your hands full.

Yes, sir. We do.

You have your hands full. So the next one is risk reduction.

And this is, interesting because you all are doing risk assessments. You kinda shared some of the tools and technologies that you're using.

I'd love to hear more about how you're starting to implement kind of the assessment, when you when you lead into or pre pre or during wildfire season?

Mike, can you So so I mentioned, earlier our fire potential index, the FPI.

We have a team of atmospheric scientists, like most of the utilities, that deal with this that that set these FPI forecasts out for us. Right? So, that right there is a big help in in reducing the risk.

But also our weather stations, as I mentioned, satellite imagery, assessing, fuel conditions real time, and then and, you know, it's something we can use drones for, get directly back to our atmospheric science teams, in areas of concern for us.

But it's also really, enhanced patrols.

So, you know, our traditional way, has been, you know, foot patrols. They take a while.

They're inherently, putting people in dangerous situations. So using, drones to do enhanced inspections where we get maybe a little bit better look, bird's eye of of our assets and and, is another big key, for us. And the other thing is, you know, really, when we look at it, it's vegetation management enhancement.

It's line hardening and, and the increased enhanced inspections.

Yeah. No. That's that's fantastic. How about you, Alex? What when you think about the way you assess your your risk, you know, either before season or during season, How how are you, conducting those risk assessments?

Seth, similar to what Mike described, one of the items that I wanna highlight though here in the risk assessment is is a capability that we're very interested in developing, and that's using drone technology to be able to assess the environment conditions.

So it's not just our infrastructure failing or finding the defects that guide the missions, but it's also every time that we get the drone up in the air, scanning the environment to identify potential issues that could pose a threat to our infrastructure. Right? And ultimately, what we're trying to do is get to the issue first, for the benefit of our communities.

And so using, the ideas that we get the drone up in the air, scan for any signs of fire, or smoke, we're also interested in understanding the ground of the soil conditions, and use that intelligence right from an environmental perspective to bring it back in, compare it against asset health.

Right? And then, high risk zones just based on climatology trends.

So that's the one area that I've challenged the team to figure out. And so we're in the we're in the process of working through that. We've partnered with, one of our university's, research center, and so they they're working very close with the state. And so we feel, that collaborating with them and developing a, a tool that helps us quickly identify this through artificial intelligence is a way to also, support, community efforts. Ultimately, nobody wants a wildfire. Yeah. And so we wanna build a network where we're collaborating with our communities as well to make sure that we're, leveraging each other resources.

Fantastic. I feel like, you know, the the ability to, leverage the onboard technology and do it efficiently to kinda scan the environment is somewhat unique. I mean, we hear that where you're inspecting assets, but using a drone to just be leveraging where where you know, what's what's taking place on the ground is seems to be unique. So that's that's awesome.

That that's particularly helpful when you have an active fire and it's burning towards your line, and you can get up and get that perspective from up in the air instead of trying to reverse all that terrain to see where it's actually at. But I wanted to mention really a a a low tech, risk reduction thing, and that is, actually putting the tools into our field personnel that they're gonna need to help suppress, if they get into a situation or protect an asset. And that's just the training Yeah. And also, you know, water pumper trucks and and Pulaskis and shovels and those type of things. So, I mean, it gets it can be really low tech to to super high-tech.

Yeah. We're gonna I wanna introduce, PSPS and EPSS, if you don't mind, Mike. Just share the the concept and what that means for folks that maybe don't know what those what those terms mean.

Yeah. So, in California, they call it EPSS.

We call it, EPS, enhanced protection settings.

But that is basically, settings that we put our protective devices into so that if we have a trip, on the system, that it does not reclose back in and start a a fire. Right? And so when that happens, we're patrolling downstream of that protective device and getting an all clear before we can reenergize.

PSPS is a public safety power shutoff, and that is where you proactively, because of weather conditions, shut power off to a certain zone, and you're impacting those customers until you have patrolled the whole line segment, all the way to the end and determined that it's safe and clear.

So that can have, kinda lasting impacts.

They're without power for a long time. There's people with medical devices and certain kind of conditions, that it's it's really a hardship, and and it's a last resort. You know?

Took the words out of my mouth.

Yeah. It's a last resort. It's that's not something that we like to do. We've only done one of them, but, but we've come close many times.

And so Yeah.

Yeah. No. That's great. I just wanna introduce that because I know it's gonna be a topic we'll discuss.

This is a video. I wanna I wanna kick this off. This actually is kind of talking about, Mike, if I'm not mistaken, this is one of your inspectors doing a inspection on a pole.

Yeah. This is a transmission patrol guy, using, x two drone, a SCADA x two drone, to just kinda systematically go down this quadrant of the pole. And he's kinda zooming in, looking at real time, you know, do I have all my parts and pieces there? Does everything look tight?

Is there any damage? And, you know, he really can get in there, and get right around the asset and see things from all angles. And I think that's just what that illustrates. It's pretty tactical piece of equipment for us.

Yeah.

And these are these are obviously the inspections necessary to keep your infrastructure running safely and Yep.

And, you know, while you're in wildfire season, it's really important that you that you're doing these.

Right. So there's several types of inspections. We have our normal inspections, and then we have a pre fire season and and a patrol as well. So, these lines are getting looked at multiple times.

Yeah. That's fantastic.

Let's go to the third r, so readiness.

And, obviously, the the tie in here is, you know, vegetation management, I know, is a big topic these days.

And, Alex, I think you mentioned this already, but love to maybe expand on this a little bit more, how you're thinking about, you know, use of vegetation management and how you do that today and kind of looking ahead as well.

Yeah. Thanks, Seth. So we we have very active, vegetation management programs already.

But from a wildlife fire perspective, it it's more than just trimming, for aerial clearance.

Right?

It's about making sure that there's not fuel, right, closed. It only takes one fire to be devastating for a community. So we wanna make sure that we identify those, proactively, and then we use that intelligence to trigger subsequent activities. Right? Whether it's going out there and removing a tree or maybe working with a landowner, to address potentially vegetation that's, that seems to be a threat.

And so that that's the that's the angle or the scope that that we wanna take here. I mentioned, two solutions that we are proposing, for in twenty twenty five. One, using satellite satellite imagery for vegetation intelligence.

And the other is the sensors that help us understand whether or not there's something fixing a break.

In Texas, there's a lot of land that doesn't necessarily have very dense vegetation, but there's a lot of brush fields. Right? Acres and acres of open land with brush, that could serve as a fuel. And so, we wanna be able to identify the cases where we have our line either sitting in those fields or adjacent to them.

And so it's more than just trimming a tree where you just back off to get the clearing, on the, aerial, from the conductor.

The other thing, the other thing that we intend to do, we don't wanna get the information that it's very functional and just for one specific purpose. And so as we use the intelligence to deploy the drone, we're really deploying it to collect information that'll help us in multiple fronts.

Right?

And so even though intelligence is specific to vegetation, it triggers an action for the drone to go out there, and we're not just looking for the vegetation that could pose a threat or address a risk tree. We're also out there looking, for example, birds that may be nesting up in the arm, right, which also could could be an issue. And so just wanted to make that clarification is that the idea is that we couple these solutions. And as we execute the mission, we're gathering intelligence that we can then bring back, dissect, and probably funnel through different, you know, specialty functions, right, for analysis.

Yeah. No. That that's fantastic.

Mike, tell us a little bit about I know you're thinking of kind of the aerial overview as I describe it, maybe pre and post season.

Tell tell us more about what that So, you know, I just wanna highlight one of the the programs we've been pretty successful with as we do these, fuel clearing and thinning, programs with other with governmental agencies.

You know, one of the things that we're discussing is, you know, to kinda assess how successful that is, is just to go in and do a two d scan, two d capture Mhmm. Of the area. And then and then after we do the the project, come back in again and see how effective that was. Yeah.

And so you know? But there there's just a lot of, value in in the vegetation management piece because, it's proven. Right? You get a lot of value out of that.

So Yeah.

You mentioned when we were talking leading into this that you have some unique examples where, you know, season to season, you have regrowth. And and it causes examples where you, you know, normally, you wouldn't have that, but your environment produces new grass. Right. Tell more about that.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's a, you know, it's a different kind of vegetation maybe than was there, pre fire.

Post fire, we've seen, fuels grow very rapidly like cheap cheap grass, and it grows very, very fast, tall. And, so then, like, two years after a fire, there's actually another fire in the same area, and it just went went nuts because there was so much rapid fuel.

Yeah.

So, sagebrush takes longer to grow. Cheatgrass is very aggressive, and and it's a fuel that dries out very quickly, and it can just really take off. So so it's not always what you think it is gonna be. You really need to do these kind of assessments, and and using the drones to do that as a effective means.

Yeah. Well, you both have very, somewhat different environments, I think, and I think you're trying to find ways to it's not always the overhanging trees or, you know, it could be it could be other brush areas like you mentioned, Alex, but it's, it's interesting to hear the perspective on both.

Well, and in our case too, Seth, it's a trap that you can fall into thinking that, well, I don't have big canopies, right, or trees getting in to the line.

But from a wildfire perspective, it's just the dangers of for any electrical equipment to come in contact with that Yeah.

Brush. And so, it's tough. Right?

Because, it's not the vegetation that California has Yeah.

But it still poses a threat. Right? And we have experienced a number of significant wildfires in the state of Texas, and so we wanna make sure we contribute to, mitigate that risk.

Yeah. That that's fantastic.

Let's move to the the next r response and, love to to, Mike, kick us off a little bit about this. How, you know, how do you guys respond to, you know, wildfires or incidents and and walk through that process.

Yeah. So and our PSPS is a little different than it is in California from the aspect of the weather.

You guys have the Santa Ana winds down here, and you kinda know they're coming, and it's a little easier to forecast.

You know, I know some of that stuff's done, you know, a week out. Yeah. Typically, with our storms, they're these dry, intense heat lightning, storms or microbursts.

And they're very, aggressive, and they're they're gone in thirty to forty minutes. And, so so they're you know, although we can most of the time predict when they're gonna be there, they will not go in the path build where we think they're gonna build. They end up in some other location.

So that makes it a little bit tough. But, you know, when we're doing this, PSPS patrol, as you can imagine so, you know, you're trying to get the power back onto those communities, and you're trying to do it safely. Yeah. But it is a process that is, very manual.

Right? You're you're trying to get people out to inspect. They're looking for really big items. It's not a detailed patrol.

You're looking for lines down or or broken components.

And, you know, even for us, it's it's, been an issue of finding, resources at times because, you know, yeah, in in Idaho, and I remember, you know, just a year ago or so, we had a PSPS. We were sure we were gonna have to, initiate in in a part of our state. A lot of the the line people were, gone elk hunting. So so it's just, you know, really, the drones can help us. I don't wanna say really a force multiplier, but maybe it is. I mean, you can cover a lot of ground Yeah. In certain areas.

Some areas, it's still faster to use a a pickup truck. Yep. But there is a lot of hazardous situations where the drone, can really help us out.

So and, you know, the other thing is, you know, when we do all this work, it's a lot of people behind the scenes, not only the patrol people. Yeah. You've got people helping to supply these people and all the logistics.

Yeah. Very labor intensive. It's, and, you know, I think you you nailed the point. When you when you go into these events, there's a lot of resources, and there's a lot of coordination that has to go into it.

Right? And, obviously, it's very impactful for your customers. This is the last kind of step effort to to keep the grid safe and the customer safe. But, knowing that that that is, you know, what what has to be done, it just creates a lot of, coordination and and resource allocation, for sure.

How about you guys, Alex?

Not specific to PSPS, but anytime that our that our system is de energized, then it has to be energized, whether it's a fault that happened or a storm that came in and caused some of the, overcurrent protection to trip.

It's important for our field, and they take it very seriously that before they energize any section of line, they gotta confirm, right, that the infrastructure is where it needs to be, that everything looks in good operating condition before we energize. And this is primarily done for safety purposes, right, both public and and employee, safety. And there's a very close coordination out in the field, right, where you have, a member that is the one responsible to make sure, right, that, those working, under them are, going out and and walking, patrolling the line.

Drone technology helps you, be more efficient in the process. Right? And so I see the potential in having a concept like, the one I heard earlier today, which was not necessarily a one to one ratio or one drone for every thirty folks, but rather the other way around. Right?

Hopefully, in a future state where you have more drone activity that's able to go out and scan the environment for you to confirm that while the system was de energized, everything, you know, is normal. Right? And and it's safe to, reenergize. And so and that applies really to every event.

Right? We we have the biggest coastal exposure in the state of Texas, and so we deal a lot with, hurricanes, and, storms. And so and typically, they come in and and and damage, or trip some of our equipment, and so that's the process that we use, to make sure everybody stays safe.

Yeah. That's that's, you know, I think at the end of the day, Mike, one of the things that I'm thinking is, you know, you're if you have to scan every, square mile of your environment when you go into these events, there's places where this is private land, and you they're hard to reach areas. And I can only imagine the impact that it takes to get that back online safely.

Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And so, you know, it's a big coordinated effort. One one thing I wanted to touch on here is that, you know, when you when you do one of these, you try to think of every scenario, right, that you're gonna encounter and you practice all this stuff.

But you learn lessons from doing it. And then you you just gotta go back and and and fine tune your process because there's always something that didn't go quite right or that you didn't think of. And so Yeah. Yeah.

It's it's that's where also the use of drones. Hey. Where can we tactically stage drone teams to help us? And that's all things that we're exploring right now.

Yeah. No. That's fantastic.

You know, one of the things that we highlight is the tools necessary to to operate in these environments is there's a lot of coordination as mentioned. But, having, the ability for field teams to be able to see their your grid into your environments, you know, as they're doing those, is really important. And I know that, you know, these events, you have to patrol at night at times.

You know, they're they're very challenging conditions.

And, obviously, we we're we're working as a as a, as a solution to to kind of give you all the tools necessary, like night night patrol operations and integration of base layers to have visual data, for your drone operators. And and, hopefully, that'll over time, it's only gonna become more valuable.

Yeah.

So Yeah. And I think the integration with some of those layers, like you're talking about on screen, be a huge huge improvement to what we have now and really add to the situational awareness of the pilots.

So, they're all positive things, for us. Yeah.

No. That's great.

Alright. Last r, recovery.

These are, obviously, post incident recovery efforts.

Alex, I don't know if you wanna or or, Mike, do you wanna kick it off? Yeah.

Yeah. You know, and it's just kind of a repeat, really of of kinda what I said on some of the vegetation stuff. But the fuels can be dynamic after a fire. Right? And so assessing, what those conditions may be after the fire or the next spring, and, again, that and a drone can be really useful for that.

And then, you know, really, the the amount of terrain that we have to cover, the those footprint that we have to cover with the employees, we have to cover. So so resources, labor is is hard to come by. Right? You just can't keep adding people. And so you try to do more, with actually less sometimes.

Yeah.

And so, using some of these tools, such as drone to con conduct a lot of this post incident assessment Yeah. Is is really a big savings to us because, one guy can cover a lot of ground, with with a drone.

Yeah. And this is a multiyear process. Right? In many cases, this takes recovery efforts are are ongoing and take a lot of time. Yep.

Alex, how about you guys?

So in a post incident, we have seen a lot of value in using, drone imagery to help characterize impact, right, following a major event. And so, one, it helps us better understand whether or not there was any opportunities, that we can or gaps that we can address.

Mhmm.

And and we tend to have, post critique reviews every time, after a major event is done. And so having this intelligence help us assess whether or not the measures that we put in place from a resiliency standpoint are effective, and we have seen a lot of value in using that intelligence. It tells us, hey. The heartening activity that we have in motion worked. Right?

The reliability projects that we kicked off were effective Yeah.

Compared to what we had experienced in the past. And so this is really good intelligence to help us gauge, the efficacy of the, of the plants that we're that we're putting forward.

The other thing is, it helps the public also, understand the severity and the, and the scale of the issue.

And so we use that as well for communication purposes.

This ties a little bit to the situational awareness item that we had, that we started off with. Yeah. Really, the expectation ties very neatly with a post incident objective. Right?

And that's and that's helping characterize the skill or the impact of the issue, communicating with the public. And let's face it. I mean, the reality is that, situational awareness, is not a choice. I mean, it's an expectation.

And our public and communities are expecting the information quick.

Yeah.

And we have the tools to be out there gathering this information, characterizing it appropriately, and making sure that we share it with them. There's other agencies too that also are involved in every major event that we experience.

And so it it's a tool, that helps us connect, build this network, with other agencies that have the similar objective of keeping our community members safe. And so that's the, that's our intent. That's the approach, and that's what we're gonna do.

It's fantastic. I think, you know, obviously, the response efforts, there's a lot of, insights and knowledge that comes out of these incidents, and and broadly sharing those to not only enhance how you guys operate, but also the public and how you coordinate with the public, how your, you know, visibility for them to understand the impact and what you're doing to, mitigate that impact. Right? So, there's a lot to learn here, and there's a lot of things that I think, generally, you, you guys can the value you can create out of this.

So when we look ahead, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you. We're, you know, if you look five years ahead, what do you need from technology, partners like us or others in the marketplace to, only, you know, increase your awareness and, and how you react to these incidents? Because I don't think anything is changing, unfortunately. We're we're all gonna be impacted many years ahead, but what what can we do to help?

So I'll share with you my perspective and and might feel free to chime in here.

I think, integrating the different solutions that are that are coming to us, is very valuable. I talked about, sensors. I talked about other feeds or inputs that come in to guide the missions that we need done, autonomously.

Mhmm.

Quick, be able to gather the intelligence, ingest the information, and then make sense out of it. Right? So that we don't have the same number of folks behind computers in a room looking at picture after picture. So that needs to that needs to be solved. I learned, a lot in this, in this, particular program.

There's a lot of good developments from an artificial intelligence and machine learning perspective. We met a lot of good folks, that we intend to follow-up with. There's a lot of, traction, I think, in that space, and and it's ours to, give up. I think we need to use it. Yeah. And we have already the desire, the, the interest in making sure that we improve the way we operate the system, both for safety purposes and operational excellence, and ultimately to deliver a bigger value to our communities and customers. Right?

We're more than just poles and wires.

Yeah.

We're members of our community.

We want their communities to thrive, and part of that is keeping them safe and making sure that we keep our system reliable and and running. So, I think, helping us with the integration is a big deal.

Yeah. Yep.

Mike? Yep. Well, you know, for me, you know, we we are expected, by our customers. They have an expectation that we're gonna perform and do our job.

And, really, for for us, it's it's the thing I see is I need the equipment to do the same thing. There's times where we have calm issues. Right? We have a very, tough environment sometimes to establish comms and to get the distances we need.

And so so when a product doesn't work, you know, it it's defeating our purpose, and then it becomes a problem for us. So so having the product work, and, also, you know, it's just a lot of the stuff, like, we're learning this this week or the last couple days, with the AI and the other integrations. I think that's, a critical piece too where we can have line sensors trigger the drone to take the flight out of the dock and then go identify Yeah. Before anybody rolls what the issue is.

So I think there's it's really exciting time. I think there's a lot of really good stuff that's happening, and, I'm just excited to see where it all ends up because there's just a lot of possibilities. There's a lot of things out there we can do.

Yeah. That's a really good point. You know, the connected base layer and the power Yep. And then, obviously, ultimately, trying to bring the solutions together, you know, get the insights faster and more connected into your world so you can you can take action.

Right? Exactly. So, great. Let's move to q and a.

What questions from the audience?

Awesome.

Melvin? Yeah.

Alex, you mentioned that, checking soil conditions was important to your inspection process, and I'm wondering how that impacts, your wild wildfowl. I didn't I didn't connect the dots there.

Yeah. Good question.

Variable. If I know that I have infrastructure next to a field with thousands of acres that could be fuel, right, if a fire happens, then the fire typically will start as the surface fire in that particular case given our vegetation, state. Right?

And so if I'm able to find, or identify ground conditions that have organic material that could easily spark and get to those thousands of acres of fuel, that's a problem.

That prioritization means to direct field activities. Does that make sense?

Thank you.

You bet. That's good. Yeah.

I think we got yeah.

I think we got one right there.

And this is mostly for Mike. So with EPSS, are you still in pilot stage for dispatching drone UAV crews to, those locations where it needs to be assessed before you reenergize the line, or is there a percentage a percentage that's, UAV versus foot patrol?

Yeah. We're we're still working through all that, but, you know, what we've identified is there are areas that, you know, the helicopter can go, patrol fast, but it can't see everything on the ground because of tree canopies and whatnot. So then your regular patrolman in a pickup truck or four wheeler is is the next quickest tool. But there's some areas that are just really tough to inspect.

Right? And the drone can do a very good job. So we're in definitely in a pilot phase of trying to figure out, hey. Where can we we've gotta get all this mapped out, get our people trained so that we we're all working together doing the correct thing.

So we're definitely in a pilot phase, right now.

And, you know, it's just one of those things that as as the next year, we're gonna get better at it, and then we're gonna get better at it. But, right now, it's a starting starting point for us.

Excellent. Thank you so much.

Anybody else? Alright. Do we have virtual questions? Yes. Virtual questions.

Okay.

So this is being live streamed. So from our virtual audience, we have a few questions. So, one person would like to know, are you sharing the risk assessment details with local first responders as a way to give them situational awareness as well?

Who wants to take that?

To my knowledge, no. I I do not know the answer to that, but I do not think we are doing that at this point.

Yeah. How about you, Alex?

In the in our vision of using drones to detect signs of fire, whether regardless of the source of the fire, we have in our plans to, build a campaign and a network, right, to collaborate with first responders, not just to share Yeah.

Our assessment of threat levels across the state, but also have a mechanism where we can work hand in hand, to address, wildfire risk and threats.

Yeah. There's a lot of coordination there.

It feels like there could be, you know, some value, to share those across.

And, obviously, you gotta gotta work through those those, processes. But Right.

I'll I'll follow-up with that just a little bit too. We do a lot of meetings with these other forest service agencies, Bureau of Land Management, and and local fire departments and fire districts all throughout these rural communities. And so, I don't know. We we do share wildfire cameras with them so they can control them. They get notified when our cameras pick up on on a on a ignition. But we, I don't know as far as, like, the level of some of our FPI type stuff. I don't think that's shared, but there is a lot of cooperation, amongst all the, organizations in the communities.

Great. Another question that came in. How long has it taken to get these processes and tools in place?

Okay. So, for so for us, it's it's, been just like drone technology period, I'll I'll speak on that to to begin with. It's it's been a very slow, painful process at my company because it's been a thing that nobody really kinda owned. Right? And and you kinda kept to carry this flag all the time and jump up and down.

And and you know? But it's it's really you know, where you start to gain traction is and there's a lot of people in the room, and I and I got got in trouble for calling their name out last year. But, but there are the people at some of these larger companies, and and, you know, they have helped us get going. They've helped us. They've shared their knowledge.

Yeah.

Events like this where we all network again, that gives me a lot a a lot of good use cases, good data to go build my program. Yeah. And, and really, you know, I think, really, the the thing that's driven this the most for us is, the threat of wildfire Yeah. And and just the intelligence that we can get, that you really can't really get any other way, is is so important in reducing a risk Yeah.

That that's really just given us a lot of traction and all these you know, it's just a slow process building our SOPs, building our training program, and so forth.

I think it's always evolving. Right? I you you feel like it's it's a constant evolution and as new technology and stuff. But, yeah, I don't know. Alex, do you need anything to add there?

So, one thing that I'd like to clarify in this particular question, you know, the the processes that that we've had are are effective. I mean, that's the reason why we have them. Right? And we and we repeat them.

Asset renewal type of programs. Right?

Vegetation management practices.

So we have the key components in motion. What we're uncovering is we're looking to unlock the potential of these new tools, the artificial intelligence, bring them together to enhance what's already working. Because we can see the value in getting there faster. Right? And we can see the value in better utilizing the limited resources that we have.

And so but as far as implementation, I mean, that's the reason why I exposed the challenge, right, that I think all of us should embrace is how do we how do we bring these, these, solutions together, right, where you bring them into a platform that quickly allows you to trigger action.

Yeah.

And so I think we gotta work on that as a community.

I don't know that there's one solution that's the silver bullet. I love drones, but I recognize that a drone alone, right, can only do so much. Absolutely. If I couple that with three or four other solutions that are providing intelligence, then that's more powerful.

Yeah.

The idea is how do I get there? And so technology is just unfolding super fast. Right? And what we have to get used to is moving just as quick.

Yeah. That's good.

Alright. Well, guys, thank you so very much.

What great insights that you guys provide, and and I hope the fire season, ends very soon. And I hope the impact isn't as, it's not, as bad coming up.

Couple items to follow-up. We've got a couple QR codes here as well around our condition based maintenance approach and then, a great demo with Dominion Energy. So, again, Alex, Mike, thank you very much for for coming out today and sharing your insights. Appreciate it, sir. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Thank you.