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Comment by cma | Hacker News Reader

Why don't we have a system of aerial drones to monitor this stuff with thermal cameras and be able to respond to incipient fires extremely fast by dispatching aerial firefighting, etc.?

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Having seen a fire almost from the beginning I would say a drone won't spot it much before it's spotted anyways. The one I saw went from zero to a few hundred meters in minutes.

Having had a drone's battery catch fire, I'm not sure the math necessarily works out on that.

Because you know little about these fires, especially the Camp Fire. The moment the sparks hit the ground it was too late. You cannot control a fire with 5% humidity and 30mph+ winds.

(edit: I meant human piloted aerial firefighting, not more far-fetched drone fire fighting)

Why would an executive at PG&E give two shits about that? They get paid via the shell company that owns the utility and their profits are guaranteed by the public regulator while their liabilities are limited by their corporate structure.

I worked at SDG&E shortly after they paid $700M for starting fires in 2007. From my vantage point in the org, I saw that (a) the executives felt pressured, (b) much of the cost was borne by shareholders not ratepayers, and (c) this incentivized the company to invest more proactively in fire prevention strategies.

Sources:

-CPUC rejects SDG&E's attempt to pass on costs: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s...

-Sempra (the parent company) settles for $700M in damages: https://uk.reuters.com/article/sempra/update-1-san-diego-uti...

-Sempra's earnings and shares down as a result: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-sempras-1st-quarte...

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