Idaho utility regulators have officially signed off on Rocky Mountain Power’s 2026–2028 Idaho Wildfire Mitigation Plan, giving the Salt Lake City–based utility the go-ahead to step up vegetation work, harden its system, and roll out other wildfire-prevention projects across its Idaho territory. The June 9 order pulls the plan under Idaho’s Wildfire Standard of Care Act and requires the company to file yearly updates and compliance reports.
According to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, Final Order No. 37063 found the filing “adequately addressed wildfire risk identification and assessment, preventative and corrective mitigation measures, public outreach and emergency response planning,” and concluded the plan met the statute’s minimum requirements. Commission staff recommended approval, but also pushed Rocky Mountain Power to provide more detailed program-level cost and performance metrics in future filings.
What the plan does
The company’s filing and public comments describe a toolkit that mixes everyday operational work with heavier engineering upgrades. That includes routine and enhanced vegetation management, situational-awareness technologies, conductor and relay upgrades, selective undergrounding and a public-safety power shutoff program for extreme fire weather. In a May statement, Rocky Mountain Power said it is “preparing for an elevated wildfire season across our service area” and pointed to enhanced safety settings and a network of weather stations to guide when and how it operates the grid.
Rocky Mountain Power serves more than 1.2 million customers across Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, according to PacifiCorp. The company’s Rocky Mountain Power filing says it provides retail electric service to roughly 91,000 customers in Idaho and targets its mitigation priorities to that footprint.
What customers can expect
The utility and the commission’s record both note that public-safety power shutoff events and other operating restrictions can increase outage frequency or length for customers in certain high-risk pockets. The plan lays out how the company intends to notify customers, support critical facilities and vulnerable customers, and bring circuits back online after those events. Rocky Mountain Power statements acknowledge that measures meant to cut ignition risk may, at times, translate into longer or more frequent planned outages in affected areas.
Costs and the legal takeaway
The commission’s order notes that Rocky Mountain Power forecasts about $13.9 million in additional wildfire-mitigation investments through 2028, with roughly $8.1 million of that in capital projects. Staff backed approval but pressed for clearer, program-by-program cost reporting in plans so regulators and the public can better see what they are paying for.
The order also underscores a key legal wrinkle: under the Wildfire Standard of Care Act, a commission-approved wildfire mitigation plan creates a rebuttable presumption that an electric utility acted without negligence if it reasonably carries out that plan. With this approval in hand, Rocky Mountain Power now has that layer of legal protection to point to in any future wildfire-related litigation, as long as it can show it followed its own roadmap.
