Risk Associated with Value Exposure (RAVE) quantifies and prioritizes wildfire ignition risk from utility equipment based on potential consequences. RAVE evaluates three main components:
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Local characteristics of impacted areas
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Fire spread exposure from wildfires potentially ignited by utility assets
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Vulnerability of the local area (population, buildings, infrastructure)
By combining these components, RAVE generates risk scores across the landscape, linking them directly to electric utility assets as potential ignition sources.
RAVE vs. RAIL
RAVE differs from Risk Associated with an Ignition Location (RAIL), though the two are complementary. RAIL focuses on location-based consequences of a potential ignition, while RAVE incorporates both ignition probability and consequences. Together, RAVE and RAIL support composite asset risk metrics for both short-term operations and long-term mitigation planning.
Composite Risk Assessment
Integrating RAVE with RAIL produces a composite risk metric for electric utility assets that accounts for local risk factors. These factors can amplify the consequences of an asset-ignited fire, thereby elevating the asset's overall risk score.
For example, if an area potentially impacted by an asset-ignited fire has:
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Significant terrain difficulty for suppression or egress (local characteristics)
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High crown fire potential and volatile fuels (fire spread exposure)
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High senior population and poverty rates (vulnerability)
Then the potential for damage or loss increases. Assets affecting such areas warrant higher risk scores than those in areas without these compounding factors.
Local characteristics and vulnerability are generally static, reflecting fixed attributes of the landscape, population, buildings, and infrastructure. In contrast, fire spread exposure is dynamic—driven by fire behavior conditions and weather patterns—and varies significantly across different weather scenarios.