Pacific Gas and Electric is asking state regulators to approve a revised wildfire-safety strategy that would scale back its goal of burying 10,000 miles of power lines, shifting more of the work to covered wires and stronger poles. The utility’s 10-year plan, submitted earlier this month to the state Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, calls for burying 5,000 additional miles of lines in high-fire-risk areas by 2037. That would be in addition to nearly 2,000 miles PG&E expects to have underground by the end of next year. The company says the changes would leave 3,000 miles that were previously expected to be buried above ground and save $117 billion. It also projects that focusing undergrounding on the areas it considers highest risk would reduce fire risk by nearly 98% and outages by 90%. Those are PG&E estimates included in its proposal. PG&E says it has already installed protective insulation on about 2,000 miles of previously uncovered lines. Under the revised approach, the utility expects 11,000 miles of its distribution system to be buried or otherwise protected by 2038. It also estimates customers would save $6 billion in vegetation-management costs as fewer lines require that work. The company originally promoted the 10,000-mile undergrounding goal in 2021, after the Dixie Fire. Its chief executive, Patti Poppe, announced the plan as PG&E faced pressure to reduce the risk that its equipment could ignite catastrophic fires. PG&E says undergrounding the highest-risk lines, while using covered wires and stronger poles elsewhere, can provide comparable safety at lower cost. “This approach helps direct investments toward the solutions that provide the greatest overall value to customers while maintaining a strong focus on safety and reliability,” the company said in a statement. Ratepayer advocates welcomed the proposed reduction, citing the burden that expensive utility projects can place on customer bills. Mark Toney of The Utility Reform Network said experience at other utilities indicates that protecting existing lines can cost 75% less than burying them. He called the cutback good news for affordability, saying undergrounding is extremely expensive. The revised plan remains a proposal before state regulators. Its central trade-off is whether PG&E can achieve the fire-safety and reliability improvements it projects while relying more on above-ground equipment—and whether the expected savings will reach customers.