Published on Wednesday, 3 December 2025 at 3:31:16 PM
As the weather starts to heat up, Western Power is finalising its annual bushfire preparedness package of work aimed at minimising the risk of bushfire around its assets.
Western Power’s Head of Asset Performance, Archana Viswanathan, said the organisation undertakes extensive work each year to prepare the network particularly in high and extreme bushfire risk zones to minimise the chance of a network-related ignition.
“In preparation for summer, we’re investing more than $284 million in targeted upgrades and maintenance, including $175 million for pole replacements, $72 million for conductor replacements, and $37 million for vegetation management,” Ms Viswanathan said.
This includes inspecting more than 152,000 poles in high and extreme fire risk areas, significantly increasing our vegetation management program and replacing close to 2,600 insulators.
“Ahead of bushfire season we focus on cutting back vegetation from poles and wires, clearing vegetation at the base of poles, inspection of assets in high and extreme fire risk areas, pole replacement and conductor replacement and helicopter siliconing of insulators,” she said.
“While vegetation is managed year-round, recent rainfall and sunny conditions have led to rapid growth this spring, prompting us to intensify our vegetation management program,” she said.
“Safety is at the heart of everything we do. Reducing the risks associated with high-voltage electricity is critical to protecting both the community and our crews.”
Western Power’s bushfire mitigation strategy combines smart network settings, proactive asset management, and operational adjustments during fire restrictions.
We understand the impact outages can have but the safety of the community and our crews is paramount.
“Our network infrastructure traverses a lot of vegetation, urban bushland and parks. We modify our network settings ahead of hot weather to minimise the risk of our assets creating a spark.
“When there is a fault or other interference during this period, the more sensitive settings ensure that power is interrupted faster than usual, and the power will remain off instead of being automatically restored until a patrol is completed or it is deemed safe to do so following a bushfire risk assessment.”
This additional layer of safety over the summer months makes the network more sensitive to faults, which means we may need to inspect power lines before restoring power. This can result in longer outage times.
“In the event of an outage during fire weather conditions, we work closely with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and local governments to make sure we have workable and effective exemptions in place to safely restore power on high fire danger weather days.”
As the busy summer period approaches, motorists are reminded to give way to Western Power emergency response vehicles when they’re operating under lights and sirens, so we can respond to an incident quickly
in an emergency.
People are asked to keep trees on their properties trimmed away from powerlines and to follow the clearance zones for a safe minimum distance.
If you see a fallen or damaged powerline or an emergency situation affecting the electricity network, stay clear and make the safe call on 13 13 51.
For more information visit: Managing Bushfire Risk
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