Sunday marked the six-month anniversary of the devastating wine country fires in Northern California. The blazes killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes. Now some changes are being made in hopes to avoid that kind of destruction in the future.
KQED's Marisa Lagos spent five months investigating what happened when the fires hit Northern California and now she's looked into the changes that are in store.
So what new policies are going into effect?
- Statewide standards for emergency alerts could be put into place, if legislation from State Senator Mark McGuire passes. Lagos said the idea is widely supported, and we could see this go into effect as early as fall 2018.
- Wireless emergency alerts will be improved by becoming more targeted, and lasting longer.
- Pacific Gas and Electric Company will work on proactively shutting off power to areas when fire conditions are present. This is something that utilities in the southern part of the state are already working on, Lagos said.