PG&E Adds New Heavy-Lift Helicopters to Support Utility Infrastructure Projects and Enhance Wildfire
Safety
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has secured two heavy-lift helicopters as part of the company’s new Community
Wildfire Safety Program. The primary purpose of the new helicopters is to help PG&E do day-to-day work in remote and hard to
reach places across its 70,000-square mile service area.
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These new heavy-lift helicopters are part of the many steps PG&E has taken under its Community Wildfire Safety
Program. (Photo: Business Wire)
“We want to be sure we are doing all we can to protect the state’s energy infrastructure and keep our customers safe given the
increased extreme weather we’re seeing across California,” said Barry Anderson, PG&E vice president of Wildfire Resiliency and
Emergency Management. “These new helicopters will help support critical utility work and will be available to aid with wildfire
safety efforts, if requested.”
PG&E has deployed helicopters, usually on a contract basis, for its electric, gas and generation work for many years in
support of construction and maintenance activities.
The newly added aircraft were secured through an exclusive use agreement with PJ Helicopters. PG&E plans to add two more
heavy-lift helicopters in 2019.
In addition to supporting utility work, PG&E will defer its use to make the new Sikorsky UH-60 fleet available for first
responder use, if needed and requested, during wildfire events.
Community Wildfire Safety Program
These new helicopters are part of the many steps PG&E has taken under its Community Wildfire Safety Program, launched in March, in response to the wildfires throughout our state last
year, as additional precautionary measures intended to reduce the risk of wildfires:
- Established a Wildfire Safety Operations Center to monitor potential fire threats across the PG&E service area in real
time and coordinate prevention and response efforts.
-
Added more than 50 new weather stations – with a total of around 200 planned in 2018 – to provide improved
awareness of fire danger conditions and better predict where a wildfire could occur.
- Enhanced vegetation management in high fire-threat areas to meet new state vegetation and fire safety
standards and create safe space between trees, limbs and power lines.
-
Alerted more than 570,000 homes and businesses served by electric lines in extreme-fire threat areas that
PG&E may have to shut off power for public safety if extreme fire danger conditions occur, as a last resort.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric energy companies in the
United States. Based in San Francisco, with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation’s cleanest energy
to nearly 16 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/ and pge.com/news.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Media Relations, 415-973-5930
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