Electricity: electrical infrastructure: wildfire mitigation: emergency operations.

Senator Pérez's wildfire mitigation legislation requires electrical utilities to expand their wildfire prevention strategies and strengthen emergency response coordination across California. The bill mandates that utilities' wildfire mitigation plans address areas adjacent to high fire threat zones and evaluate undergrounding distribution infrastructure in rebuilt areas when cost-effective compared to other prevention measures.

The legislation establishes new protocols for emergency communications and operations. Utilities must conduct annual preparedness workshops with local fire departments to review mitigation plans and address coordination gaps identified during past emergency responses. Additionally, utilities operating in areas that overlap with state regional emergency operations centers must assign trained representatives to work directly within those centers.

For large electrical corporations, the bill restricts their ability to include certain fire risk mitigation expenditures approved after January 1, 2025, in their equity rate bases. This limitation applies to the corporations' proportional shares as determined by the existing Wildfire Fund allocation metric.

The measure also enhances public notification requirements during planned power shutoffs, mandating that utilities enable household members who are not account holders to receive deenergization alerts and coordinate messaging with public safety partners. These provisions aim to ensure broader community awareness during emergency events while maintaining established ratepayer protections.