With power lines sparking more wildfires as climate change makes landscapes more flammable and drives a movement to “electrify everything,” a simple solution is gaining acceptance despite the cost.

With the West stricken by rising temperatures, deepening drought and blasting winds, often all that’s needed to ignite a fire is a spark. Increasingly, power lines strung through expansive wildlands to sprawling Western communities provide the flashes that grow into megafires.

Burying electrical distribution lines prevents nearly all such ignitions, and the related power outages, but prices of up to $4 million or more for each mile of “undergrounding,” and difficult logistics have prevented widespread adoption of the practice.

Power lines shouldn’t be sparking wildfires anymore, said Paul Chinowsky of Resilient Analytics, an engineering consulting firm in Boulder, Colorado that focuses on adaptation to climate impacts. 

“This should be one of the top priorities that’s going on in the West,” Chinowosky said. “If we want to minimize wildfires, if we want to minimize the risk to our reliability, start undergrounding.” 

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