Abstract:

Grid-spread wildfires have become a powerful threat to the reliability of power transmission networks and environmental security. Transmission lines, when subjected to severe weather conditions and heavy vegetation density, may serve as ignition sources, causing extensive damage and economic loss. Conventional wildfire risk assessment approaches mostly consider environmental issues without leveraging fully grid-specific vulnerabilities. This work presents a new risk measure quantifying the vulnerability of transmission lines to being ignited by wildfires, taking into account weather, grid structure, and vegetation information. Our framework integrates topological, meteorological, and power grid data to model ignition points and determine the cascading impact of transmission line outages resulting from wildfire propagation. The efficacy of this risk indicator is illustrated through quantitative analysis on the IEEE 30-bus test system, giving a thorough ranking of transmission lines according to their wildfire risk. The results provide actionable information for electric utilities, allowing focused grid-hardening plans, optimized vegetation management, and enhanced Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) actions. By adopting this risk-based methodology, power utilities can strengthen grid resilience, minimize economic loss, and minimize the environmental effect of grid-ignited wildfires