Disaster preparedness: urban retail water suppliers and public water systems: wildfire

The law aims to protect drinking-water systems from wildfire damage, power loss, and service disruptions. It also clarifies that water systems are not required to function as wildfire-suppression systems.

What the law does ​

• Requires covered urban retail water suppliers to add wildfire-specific procedures to disaster-preparedness and applicable emergency-response plans.
• Requires plans to address mitigation, preparation, response, recovery, critical-infrastructure resilience, backup power or alternative water sources, coordination with responders, and customer communications.
• Requires covered suppliers to provide their wildfire procedures to the county Office of Emergency Services and review plans at least every five years.
• Preserves confidentiality protections for operational and critical-infrastructure information in these plans.
• Bars treating a supplier's failure to carry out plan actions, or a system's inability to maintain water supply or pressure during a wildfire, as a substantial cause of wildfire damages.
• Preserves liability for negligent operation of a public water system in its intended drinking-water function.

Who it affects ​

• Urban retail water suppliers serving 3,300 or more people in high or very high fire hazard severity zones.
• Public water systems, including wholesale water systems, whose wildfire-defense obligations and liability limits are clarified.
• County Offices of Emergency Services and local emergency responders that coordinate with covered water suppliers.

Context ​

Water systems remain responsible for negligent operation in their intended role of providing drinking water, but are not required to be designed, built, or maintained for wildfire defense or suppression.