By Mark Jaffe, Colorado Sun
Facing nearly 300 lawsuits over a wildfire that destroyed 1,084 homes and killed two people, Xcel Energy on Thursday filed a $1.9 billion wildfire mitigation plan aimed at preventing future blazes.
Among the initiatives in the three-year plan are adding hundreds of weather stations and cameras, adding technology to more precisely target planned outages, replacing outdated equipment and increasing line inspections by radar drones.
“These investments are designed to mitigate a risk,” Robert Kenney, CEO of Xcel’s Colorado subsidiary, said in an interview. “We are trying to do everything we can do to tackle this problem and keep our customers safe.”