Hawaii’s largest electrical utility is now exploring a preemptive power shutoff program and taking other action to reduce wildfire risk in the wake of the deadly Aug. 8 disaster in Lahaina.

Hawaiian Electric announced Friday that it has begun discussions with government, emergency response and community stakeholders to determine how a Public Safety Power Shutoff program can be designed and implemented when high-risk weather conditions for wildfire arise.

Before the fire that killed at least 99 people and destroyed Lahaina town, the company had determined that such a program wasn’t right for its service areas throughout Oahu, Maui County and Hawaii island. That decision, however, has been questioned by government officials and others.

“With the events of Aug. 8 fresh in our minds, safety remains our top priority, and as drought conditions continue, Hawaii is seeing heightened risks for wildfires across the state, as we have seen this week with a fire near Mililani,” Jim Alberts, Hawaiian Electric senior vice president and chief operations officer, said in a statement. “We are building upon our current strategy and implementing new and expanded practices to further reduce the risk of wildfires.”

Wildfire safety strategy work at Hawaiian Electric began in 2019, according to the company, and has evolved to address elevated risks in the state.

The utility said in a January wildfire mitigation plan submitted to the state Public Utilities Commission that it had reviewed a public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, program implemented by California utility Pacific Gas &Electric after a deadly 2018 wildfire in that state, and found that a similar program in Hawaii was not desirable.

“Based on news reports, Pacific Gas &Electric’s practice to preemptively turn off circuits in certain areas if conditions were ripe for a wildfire was not well-received by certain customers affected,” Hawaiian Electric’s January plan said. “For Hawaii, it is not recommended that Hawaiian Electric adopt this practice.”

Hawaiian Electric’s plan said conditions for the 2018 California fire that led to PG&E’s shutoff program involved many tall trees adjacent to power lines and that this doesn’t exist as much in Hawaii.

“As noted previously, the type of vegetation in the potential wildfire areas in Hawaii would not likely cause the same catastrophic level of wildfires that California has experienced,” the plan said. “In addition, a lot of the Hawaiian Electric distribution circuits meander through non-wildfire areas and then through potential wildfire areas. Thus, preemptively turning off circuits would impact customers that may not be in potential wildfire areas.”

Company officials also have previously raised concerns about negative consequences from public safety power shutoffs, which can affect customers who need to power medical devices or harm people in other ways.

Shortly after the Lahaina fire, Hawaiian Electric officials said they were reexamining doing without a PSPS program.

“We are absolutely reexamining our protocols,” Shelee Kimura, Hawaiian Electric president and CEO, said during a September congressional hearing in response to a question about whether the company was looking at a PSPS program.

Another Hawaii utility, Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, has already gone a step further. On Aug. 30 the company de-energized a power line serving about 100 customers in Kokee and a second line serving only a few customers in the Mahaulepu area in response to a “red flag” warning signifying expected sustained strong wind, warm temperatures and low humidity.

On Friday, Hawaiian Electric said any implemented PSPS program will have to be appropriate for each county and ensure public safety when power is shut off, potentially for multiple days.

Former PUC member Mina Morita said having a PSPS option available is good but that using such an extreme preventive tool requires careful consideration.

“It has to be used wisely and sparingly,” she said. “You need to have a lot of different tools in the toolbox. Applying the right program at the right time with the information that they have is critical.”

Hawaiian Electric on Friday said new procedures are being implemented immediately to reduce chances of its system sparking a wildfire.

One new procedure is to deploy spotters at strategic locations in risk areas to watch for fire ignition if the National Weather Service issues a red flag warning.

Another one is having power lines in risk areas shut off automatically if a fault or disturbance is detected on a circuit, and keeping such lines off until crews visually confirm that it is safe to restore power. Hawaiian Electric said this procedure might result in longer outages in some areas, including outages lasting overnight.

No official cause of the Lahaina fire, which caused an estimated $5.6 billion in damage, has been determined. Yet many law firms representing plaintiffs harmed by the fire have sued Hawaiian Electric, along with public and private landowners in some cases, alleging that gale-force winds toppled a power line that ignited dry brush on the ground and spread furiously through Lahaina town.

Some of the lawsuits contend that Hawaiian Electric should have turned off the power before the damaging weather began, given that the National Weather Service had forecast wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour and a red flag warning of high fire risk due to dry brush conditions.

Hawaiian Electric in its Friday announcement described future potential use of a PSPS as requiring extensive coordination across all levels of government, first responders, essential service providers and the community along with customer education, backup power plans for critical customers and other resources.

The company also described PSPS as a tool of last resort, and said it is working on a variety of system upgrades that can reduce wildfire risk.

Some of the upgrades the company described Friday have been previously reported as being planned or deployed more broadly.

In the nearer term, Hawaiian Electric intends to install more advanced sensors, cameras and other technology to reduce the likelihood of longer outages and the need for visual observation.

A second phase of improvements that the company said is underway or soon to be underway includes:

>> Installing cameras and weather sensors in critical areas.

>> Switching from single- strand copper lines, which can become brittle over time, to aluminum wire or covered lines in some areas.

>> Replacing wood poles with steel poles in some areas.

>> Expanding pole and line inspections using helicopters, drones, infrared imaging and ground inspection.

>> Addressing sag and tension in lines, and adding spacers to reduce the potential for sparking.

A longer-term phase of work is to include undergrounding power lines in strategic at-risk areas, more precise wildfire-focused weather forecasting and risk-modeling, and expanding use of covered power lines, fast-acting fuses and fire- resistant poles and equipment.

Some upgrade plans are already pending PUC approval, and other changes also will be subject to PUC approval.