Risk-based vegetation management planning: see when each span will lose its clearance, and trim it before fire season
Every span forecast to lose its clearance is trimmed before fire season.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Vegetation Management Planning is software for a utility's vegetation programme: it measures how close the trees are to the wire on every span of every overhead line, forecasts when each span will lose its clearance, and builds the trim plan from the spans at risk instead of from the calendar. Many programmes still trim each line on a fixed cycle of a few years. The calendar reaches a line when its turn comes, not when its trees reach the wire. Cottonwood, willow and alder on wet creek bottoms are hazardous a year before the crew arrives, while oak and pine ridges are trimmed with nothing to cut.
The evidence that would change the plan sits in pieces. LiDAR is accurate but too expensive to fly every year. Foresters' patrol notes and customer reports of branches on the line end up in spreadsheets nobody opens. Outage cause codes are not tied to spans. And contractor invoices are paid on the spans claimed, with a manual sample checked afterwards. Vegetation is the most common cause of US power outages, and in a high fire-threat area a span inside the minimum clearance is a fire risk.
Estimated split for one distribution line of about 400 spans, in working days, by hand and with the solution.
Six specialist agents measure, forecast and plan every span; the vegetation programme manager signs the plan.
Lumina Utilities trims its 2,380 overhead miles on a four-year calendar. Line L-204, Harlow – Pine Hollow, is 21.4 miles and 412 spans of 12.47 kV, serving 2,914 customers; spans 181–412 lie in the high fire-risk area. It was last trimmed in October 2023, so the calendar trims it next in October 2027 — four months into fire season. Here is 13 October 2026, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Nadia owns the FY2027 vegetation budget and the 595-mile cycle plan. Her home screen draws L-204 as a straight strip from Harlow substation to Pine Hollow, the canopy rising toward the wire, dashed lines at the 6 ft trim trigger and the 4 ft minimum, and a colour band span by span. Today 6 spans are inside 4 ft — 5 of them in the fire-risk area — and 30 are amber, at 4–6 ft. The agents ran at 06:10 on the 9 Oct satellite pass.
Run log: “Clearance measurer · measured 350 spans with trees from the 9 Oct pass · 3 used the 14 Sep pass (cloud, shadow)”
Under the title runs a forecast slider from today to September 2027, with fire season from 1 June marked. Nadia moves it to 1 June 2027 and the strip redraws: 37 spans inside 4 ft, 31 more than today, 29 of them in the fire-risk area. The forecast is learned from three years of satellite canopy change, the species and the season. The rail on the right lists the red spans in the order they cross 4 ft.
“25 of 37 cross 4 ft between March and June — the spring growth a fixed cycle cannot see coming.”
Span 287, P-287 to P-288, is a black cottonwood on the Hollis Creek bottom, with 589 customers beyond it. It is 6.4 ft from the wire on the 9 Oct pass, calibrated to the 18 June 2025 LiDAR flight. It grows toward the wire at 6.4 ft a year, crosses 4 ft on 12 May 2027 and reaches 3.2 ft ± 0.6 ft on 1 June. The side view shows today's crown and the forecast crown as a ghost, and each number cites its source.
The growth forecaster never forecasts past 12 months, and sends a low-confidence span to patrol instead of hiding it.
On 22 Sep Ellen walked the Hollis Creek bottom and wrote: “Big cottonwood on the creek side of P-287/P-288, dead top, leaning maybe 8 degrees toward the wire, about 26 in DBH, 70 ft.” The patrol note reader matched it to span 287 and read it into tree, condition, access and urgency, highlighting the words each came from. Its finding: hazard tree — remove. Access: locked gate, call the landowner first. Urgency: remove on the first visit.
The patrol note reader never closes a hazard tree; a forester confirms every one.
The same slider drives the Lines screen. On 1 June 2027 the network has 1,126 spans inside 4 ft, against 214 today. L-204 leads with 37, then L-152 Alder Flats with 29 and L-226 Stonebridge with 24 — both on the calendar for 2028. L-163 Copper Gulch is due in May 2027 and should come forward to March. L-117 Marrow Creek, due in March, can defer its cycle to FY2029 and spot-trim 3 spans.
Each line beside its calendar date and a recommendation: before June, bring forward, spot trim, on the calendar or defer.
Nadia builds the plan. The trim plan builder collects the 37 spans red by 1 June, adds the 4 hazard trees from patrol notes — spans 287, 302, 334 and 371, each confirmed by Ellen Marsh — groups them into 9 work units with one access point each, writes prescriptions and prices them on the contract unit rates, and sequences them before fire season.
“Nothing goes to a contractor until you approve.”
Visit 1, by 12 Nov 2026, takes the 6 spans already inside 4 ft, 1 red by January and the 4 hazard trees. Visit 2, from 11 Jan to 24 Feb 2027, takes 30 spans in the dormant season, before spring growth — well inside the 15 May deadline. Post-trim clearance is 15 ft for cottonwood and willow and 12 ft for the rest. The calendar would trim all 412 spans in October 2027 for $265,400.
Calendar: “All 412 spans in October 2027 — four months after 37 spans turn red.”
The sign-off states what she approves: 9 work units, 37 spans and 4 hazard trees for $86,400; the L-204 calendar cycle of $265,400 moves to FY2029; bid package BP-2027-014 is released to the contracts manager. Version 3 of the FY2027 plan re-sequences 152 cycle miles with nothing to cut and moves $1,884,800 to spans that turn red. The signature goes on the audit trail.
Deferrals only where no span is forecast inside 6 ft for 12 months; a line in the fire-risk area needs the director.
BP-2027-014 lists 37 side-trim spans to ANSI A300 natural-target pruning, 4 hazard tree removals, 3 days of traffic control and 2 visits, with access notes down to the locked gate at the Hollis barn. It goes to the three panel contractors, bids due Fri 6 Nov 2026 at 17:00. On L-152, three bids are compared by unit price: Cascade Edge Arborists is the lowest compliant bid at $64,650, inside the $68,900 estimate.
Northfork Vegetation Co. is marked not compliant: “No ISA-certified utility specialist named as crew lead.”
Last season, on L-311 Fernbank, Cascade Edge claimed 52 spans and 2 hazard trees on invoice CE-26-1187 for $64,880. The work verifier matched 54 completion records to their spans, compared them with Ellen's audit of 18 spans and the 9 Oct satellite pass: 49 verified to spec, spans 118 and 141 short of the post-trim clearance, span 203 billed but not worked. $61,140 goes for payment and $3,740 is held.
The work verifier never approves a payment; the forester signs the verification and the contracts manager pays.
The same line, seen by the five people who plan, cut, check and pay for the work — what their season looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six specialist agents measure, forecast and plan every span; the vegetation programme manager signs the plan.
Measures radial and overhang clearance on every span from the latest LiDAR and each satellite pass, and calibrates the satellite canopy height to the last LiDAR flight.
Learns growth toward the wire from three years of passes on spans of the same species and soil, adjusts for this season's rainfall, and forecasts monthly when each span crosses the 6 ft trigger and the 4 ft minimum, with a confidence band.
Reads foresters' notes, storm patrols, contractor notes, photos and customer reports into line, span, species, condition, access and urgency, matching pole numbers, addresses or GPS and quoting the sentence.
Ties outage records and cause codes to spans, and adds the customers downstream and the fire-risk area to each span's risk.
Groups red spans and confirmed hazard trees into work units by access, writes prescriptions, prices them on the contract unit rates, sequences them before fire season within budget and drafts the bid package.
Compares contractor completion — GPS photos, crew notes and unit counts — with the forester's audit and post-work satellite imagery, and reconciles the invoice span by span.
Signs; forester confirms hazards; contracts manager pays. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any line, span or plan — or say what to trim first. Every answer points to its source.
Which spans on L-204 go red before June?
37 spans are forecast inside 4 ft by 1 June 2027. Six already are today; the other 31 cross between January and June, most of them in April and May, when cottonwood, willow and alder put on half a year's growth. 29 are in the high fire-risk area. The worst stretch is the Hollis Creek bottom, spans 284–291: seven red spans and a dead-top cottonwood at 287. The calendar does not reach this line until October 2027.
Why will span 287 lose its clearance by May?
Span 287 is a black cottonwood on wet creek-bottom soil. It is 6.4 ft from the wire today — above the 6 ft trigger, so a patrol would pass it. It grows toward the wire at 6.4 ft a year, and nearly a fifth of that arrives in May: it crosses 4 ft around 12 May and reaches 3.2 ft on 1 June. Ellen Marsh also found a dead top leaning about 8° toward the line, so it is a hazard-tree removal on the first visit.
What can wait on Marrow Creek?
Almost all of it. L-117 Marrow Creek is on the calendar for March 2027, a full cycle of 18.2 miles at $225,680. No span is forecast inside 6 ft before September 2027 except blackberry on the guy wires at spans 212–214, which Ellen Marsh confirmed on 2 Oct. Spot-trim those three for about $4,100 and defer the cycle to FY2029. Across the network, 11 lines and 152 miles look like this. Deferring needs your approval in the plan.
Build the trim plan from the June red spans
Building it now from the 06:10 forecast: the 37 spans red by 1 June and the 4 hazard trees from patrol notes, grouped by access, priced on the contract rates and sequenced so the six spans already inside 4 ft are cut by 12 November. You approve it before anything goes to a contractor.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The clearances, the forecast, the calendar it is compared with and who signs are settings, chosen by the utility. Changes are versioned and on the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum clearance | 4.0 ft | Set in feet — inside it a span is red; the state's minimum in fire-risk areas, applied on every line |
| Trim trigger | 6 ft | 6 ft · 5 ft · 8 ft — inside it a span is amber and goes on the next plan |
| Post-trim clearance | 12 ft · 15 ft for cottonwood and willow | 12 ft, 15 ft for cottonwood and willow · 10 ft, 12 ft for fast growers · 15 ft on every species |
| Fire season starts | 1 June · work done by 15 May | 1 June, work done by 15 May · 15 May, work done by 1 May · 1 July, work done by 15 June |
| Forecast horizon | 12 months | 12 months · 6 months · 9 months |
| Cloud or shadow over a span | On | On · Off — use the last clear pass and mark the span low confidence; a separate switch sends low-confidence spans to patrol |
| LiDAR flights | Every 3 years · next June 2028 | Every 3 years (next June 2028) · Every 2 years (next June 2027) · Every year — calibrates the satellite canopy height |
| Cycle the forecast is compared with | 4 years | 4 years · 3 years · 5 years |
| Allow deferral | On | On · Off — only when no span is forecast inside 6 ft for 12 months; a fire-risk line needs the director's signature |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample utility data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our arithmetic, inputs shown ($1.88M = 152 cycle miles × $12,400 a cycle mile, the demo utility's contract rate) · “typical” = published figures (US DOE, Vegetation Management, 2024 — vegetation causes over 20% of US outages; rebuttal testimony in Kentucky PSC case 2025-00114 — $1.21 of cost for every $1 deferred one year). Rules named as context: NERC FAC-003; CPUC GO 95 Rule 35 and D.17-12-024 (at least 4 ft in high fire-threat areas); ANSI A300 Part 7. Lumina Utilities and the people, lines, contractors and records named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software that decides which spans of an overhead line to trim, when and at what cost. Vegetation Management Planning measures the clearance between trees and the wire on every span, forecasts when each span will lose its clearance, and builds a priced trim plan and bid package from the spans at risk — the vegetation programme manager approves and signs it.
Instead of trimming each line when its cycle comes round, the plan starts from the spans forecast inside the 4 ft minimum before fire season and the hazard trees confirmed by a forester. Spans are ranked with the fire-risk area, the customers beyond them and their outage history. Lines with nothing to cut can be deferred, and that budget moves to the spans that turn red.
The growth forecaster learns growth toward the wire from three years of satellite passes on spans of the same species and soil, adjusted for the season's rainfall, and calibrated to the last LiDAR flight. It forecasts month by month for up to 12 months, with a confidence band, and sends spans hidden by cloud or shadow to patrol.
No. LiDAR still calibrates the satellite canopy height — every three years in the sample utility — and each satellite pass keeps the measurement current in between. Patrols go where they matter: to low-confidence spans and suspected hazard trees, and foresters confirm every hazard tree.
A cycle can be deferred only where no span is forecast inside 6 ft for 12 months, and only with the programme manager's approval; a line in the fire-risk area needs the director's second signature too. In the sample programme, 152 cycle miles qualified and an estimated $1.88M moved to spans that turn red.
The work verifier matches every completion record to its span and compares it with the forester's audit and the next satellite pass, then reconciles the invoice. Spans short of the post-trim clearance or billed but not worked are held, and a rework order can be sent. The forester signs the verification; the contracts manager pays.
Yes. The agents measure, forecast, read notes, match outages and propose; they cannot lower a clearance, award work, approve a payment, close a hazard tree or re-code an outage cause. Nothing goes to a contractor until the programme manager approves and signs the plan.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your vegetation standard, contract unit rates, span register, imagery and a sample of patrol notes and outage records — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own lines first.
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