With Great Power National Grid maps its wildfire risk
Mar 3, 2026
Casey Kirkpatrick, Director of Group Strategic Engineering at National Grid with 25+ years in utilities, leads wildfire risk mapping. He discusses lessons learned from other utilities and the Rhizome partnership. They cover surprising seasonal peaks, suburban risk hotspots, span-level geospatial analysis, trade-offs like undergrounding, and how wildfire fits into broader climate resilience planning.
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Military Service Led To A Long National Grid Career
- Casey joined National Grid after leaving the Navy to find meaningful work for his family and community.
- He transitioned from naval officer duties to an operations engineer role and has been at National Grid for 25 years.
Wildfire Risk Shows More Extreme Days Not Constant Rise
- National Grid's early model returns suggest overall wildfire risk may stay similar but extreme high-risk days will increase rapidly.
- Pockets of drought can create sudden high-risk windows even in otherwise wet years, shifting threat timing unpredictably.
Run Span Level Geospatial Risk Assessments
- Use a geospatial, span-level asset risk assessment that incorporates future climate projections to target mitigations affordably.
- National Grid provided asset and inspection data while Rhizome supplied weather/climate projections and produced span-level risk scores.