Wildfire Prevention Starts Before the Fault
- Christopher Casey
- May 26
- 4 min read
Earlier this month at the IEEE Transmission & Distribution Conference, artificial intelligence was everywhere. The agenda covered neural networks (computer systems that learn to recognize patterns the way a brain does), predictive analytics, advanced fault detection, wildfire modeling, and automated inspection platforms. These technologies are set to become an important part of how the industry manages grid reliability and wildfire risk.
But after sitting through presentations, meeting with utility leaders, and walking the conference floor, one thought kept returning:
AI will not save you from a rotten crossarm.
This reality is hard to ignore. Across North America, utilities are still contending with the same fundamental infrastructure conditions they have battled for decades — cracked insulators, deteriorating hardware, damaged splices, vegetation encroachment, corroded connectors, aging structures, failing pole tops, and clearance deficiencies.
None of these are theoretical. And most are detectable long before they cause an outage, an ignition event, or an emergency repair call.
The Real Challenge Is Not Awareness
Utility leaders already understand these risks. Transmission and distribution professionals know their systems' vulnerabilities better than anyone. The challenge is seeing developing conditions early, clearly, and consistently, then prioritize corrective action before failure occurs.
The industry gravitates toward advanced technology for good reason: the scale of the problem is enormous. Utilities manage aging infrastructure across thousands of miles, often in difficult terrain and increasingly severe weather. AI-based systems promise automation, prediction, and improved operational awareness. These capabilities are real and worth pursuing.
But even the most sophisticated analytics platform depends on one critical input:
Good field data.
A neural network may be great at identifying patterns, but it cannot see a defect that was never captured clearly enough. If the underlying inspection process misses deteriorating equipment, the software built on top of it becomes irrelevant. The foundation is the data. The data comes from the inspection.
What the Wildfire Presentations Confirmed
Several wildfire sessions at IEEE T&D reinforced this point directly. Discussions around high-impedance faults, ignition testing, and fault current behavior highlighted how dangerous small, developing problems become when they remain undetected.
In one example, presenters described how relatively low levels of fault current could ignite vegetation under the right conditions. In another, a fallen conductor fault reportedly grew from approximately one amp to seventy amps over a thirty-minute window before manual intervention was required.
The pattern was consistent: not every dangerous condition produces an immediate trip or a dramatic failure. Some conditions develop slowly and without visible warning — which means prevention cannot depend entirely on protection systems reacting after the fault occurs.
The physical condition of the system is where preventative maintenance continues to play an irreplaceable role.
Why Close Visual Inspection Is Key
This is not broad aerial coverage, drive-by patrols or low-resolution imagery collected at a distance. Close-proximity inspection by experienced utility professionals is needed to comprehensively evaluate the physical condition of an asset, before it fails.
At Guidant Power, our aerial inspection work gives utilities visibility at the precise point where failures actually begin. That means flying close enough to identify developing defects with the resolution required for real maintenance decisions across crucial components: insulators, connectors, splices, crossarms, pole tops, hardware assemblies, and structural attachment points.
Coverage alone does not prevent outages. On the other hand, finding actionable defects early enough most often does.
The Data Overload Problem
One of the most common frustrations we hear from utility leaders today is not a lack of data — it is an excess of it. Many organizations are drowning in imagery, dashboards, alerts, and disconnected software platforms, with no clear path from data collection to operational execution.
Field crews don’t need more dashboards. They need to know the exact issue, at the right location, in the right order — before it becomes an outage or an ignition event.
That is why Guidant combines close aerial inspection with our proprietary ADEPT platform and experienced linemen who understand how equipment actually fails in the field. Our process translates inspection findings into prioritized maintenance decisions, rather than generate more data to sort through.
The difference between reactive and proactive maintenance is not awareness. It is prioritization.
Most utilities already know they have aging infrastructure and developing defects somewhere on their system. They need help deciding what needs immediate action, what can wait, where crews should go first, and how to reduce operational risk without overwhelming limited resources. That is where actionable aerial inspection comes in, not just to generate information, but to empower better decisions. The goal is to optimize maintenance execution by transitioning from reactive to proactive predictive strategies
New Technology, Existing Foundations
The electric grid faces mounting pressure from aging infrastructure, wildfire exposure, extreme and unpredictable weather events, growing load, and rising public expectations around reliability. While it’s certainly exciting that advanced analytics and AI will help utilities manage that complexity, the new technology depends on a solid foundation, with equipment in good working condition. And some things don’t change:
You prevent failures by finding deteriorating equipment before it fails.
If you are responsible for managing transmission and distribution assets and want to see what actionable aerial inspection looks like in practice, I would welcome the conversation. At Guidant Power and Monroe Infrared, we are ready to show you how close visual inspection, thermal scanning, experienced utility expertise, and prioritized maintenance intelligence can help your teams stay ahead of the next outage — rather than responding to it after the fact.
