2024-11-21 Executive Summary Concerning Hazards of Ignoring Electrically-Caused Fire Risks Associated with Cell Tower and Powerline Infrastructure in the Tahoe Regional Evacuation Plan

Download the Full Comments submitted on 11/20/24 to Douglas County Nevada Board of County Commissioners (here is latest version of this living document)

A massive electrical wildfire in the Lake Tahoe Basin is a preventable and manageable catastrophe. Lake Tahoe communities have a choice. They can passively allow a massive electrically-caused wildfire to happen, or they can take reasonable and immediate precautionary actions. Ground zero for addressing the significant risks of a major electrically-caused wildfire is immediately revising the present Tahoe Regional Evacuation Plan to address this significant complicating factor.

The assessment of the additional hazards to effective evacuation presented in this paper is based on an Analytic Risk Matrix developed by the BBILAN Team. It offers a tool to begin to assess and to measure the probability and likely ensuing damages (Risk = Probability x Damages) of ignoring electrically-caused fire risks, as well as the benefit streams of addressing them. This is a very preliminary analysis which deserves in-depth attention with more sophisticated risk assessment methodologies. But it is a first practical step. We are challenging the prevailing premise that the risk of electrically-caused fires is so minimal that it doesn’t even deserve attention at all — hence virtually zero risk — particularly during evacuations. We believe this could prove a tragic error in judgment.

This memorandum also views the significant risks of electric fires, and their particular challenges during evacuation, as an opportunity for resilient leadership and community-wide collaborative innovation. We have identified ten strategic innovations, estimated their benefit streams, and suggested a way to finance the program through Green/Social Impact Bonds. The success of this proposal will require an important behavioral shift away from learned helplessness and passivity toward activated civic responsibility, wise leadership, collaboration, and compassion. The real seismic shift is one of public consciousness: to realize that caring for the larger Tahoe community, especially for its most defenseless members, is the greatest act of self-care and self-preservation. We are the makers of our destinies.