As the Bain Fire burns in the Santa Ana River bottom near Limonite Avenue and Bain Street, the smoke over our region should remind every Riverside resident of a debate some members of the Riverside City Council tried to dismiss, minimize, and politicize.

This fire is not just a brush fire. It is a real-time demonstration of what residents warned about: the Santa Ana River bottom is a dangerous, complex, fuel-heavy corridor where fire suppression is difficult, evacuations become chaotic, and infrastructure decisions carry consequences.

CAL FIRE reported the Bain Fire began on May 19, 2026, near Limonite Avenue and Bain Street in Jurupa Valley, with the cause still under investigation. Early reports described heavy fuels, a moderate rate of spread, evacuations, injuries, and rapid growth from a small incident into hundreds of acres with zero containment.   ABC7 also reported the fire erupted in the Santa Ana River bottom, forcing crews to push through heavy vegetation to reach the flames.  

That matters because Riverside residents repeatedly raised this exact concern during the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project debate. They warned that placing massive overhead transmission infrastructure through and near the river bottom was not simply an aesthetic issue. It was a public safety issue. It was a firefighting issue. It was an evacuation issue. It was a reliability issue. And instead of treating those residents as informed stakeholders, some elected officials treated them like obstacles.

Riverside Needed Leadership, Not Surrender

The Riverside Transmission Reliability Project is not a minor utility upgrade. Riverside Public Utilities describes RTRP as a second connection to the California electric grid, intended to meet existing and projected electrical demand and reduce dependence on Riverside’s single outside grid connection.
 
That need is real. Riverside does need redundant, reliable electricity.

But the question was never whether Riverside needs reliability.

The question was whether Riverside’s elected officials had the strength, discipline, and negotiating ability to demand a safer project.

The approved SCE project includes a 10-mile, double-circuit 220 kV transmission line, with roughly four miles underground and six miles overhead. SCE states that Riverside voted on May 21, 2024, to move forward with the approved project and that construction began in June 2025.   Local reporting described the Council’s May 2024 vote as a 4-3 decision approving a plan involving 180-foot towers above the Santa Ana River, despite opposition from residents and neighboring cities.  

That vote was the failure.

Not because Riverside does not need power. Not because redundancy is unnecessary. But because Riverside should never have accepted a high-risk overhead transmission design through one of the most fire-sensitive and operationally difficult corridors in the region without exhausting every political, regulatory, legal, and legislative tool available.

The River Bottom Fire Risk Was Not Imaginary

Today’s fire proves the concern was not theoretical.

The Santa Ana River bottom is not a clean, easily accessible utility corridor. It is dense, dry, fuel-loaded, environmentally constrained, and difficult to fight during a fast-moving incident. When fire starts there, crews do not simply drive up to a hydrant and put it out. They deal with terrain, vegetation, access limits, smoke, evacuation zones, aircraft coordination, and public safety risks.

That is exactly why residents were right to demand more than “trust the process.”

The response from some Council members showed a troubling pattern: when residents raised serious public safety issues, they were treated as emotional, uninformed, or obstructionist. But the residents were asking the obvious question: Why would Riverside accept 18th-century overhead transmission infrastructure in a 21st-century fire-risk environment when undergrounding is already being used elsewhere in California?

That is not fearmongering. That is risk management.

Even the Utilities Admit Undergrounding Reduces Fire Risk

Southern California Edison’s own wildfire safety material says it is burying power lines in high-fire-risk areas to reduce wildfire risk, improve reliability during extreme weather, and protect the system from high winds, vegetation, and other hazards that can cause fires or outages.  

The California Public Utilities Commission also states that undergrounding electric distribution and transmission lines can improve reliability and make wildfire-prone areas safer. The CPUC reports that undergrounding programs have contributed to more than 73,500 miles of underground distribution-line construction or conversion statewide, and that about 33% of California’s distribution lines are underground.  

So let’s stop pretending this was an impossible concept.

Other communities have fought for, funded, negotiated, or received undergrounding. Riverside’s leaders simply failed to deliver it where it mattered.

Examples include:

Community / Area	Undergrounding Activity
Altadena and Malibu	SCE’s post-wildfire rebuilding plan focuses primarily on undergrounding power lines in these areas.
San Diego	The city has an ongoing Utilities Undergrounding Program with SDG&E to move overhead electric and communication lines underground.
San Diego / SDG&E territory	SDG&E’s Strategic Undergrounding Program began in 2019 and targets approximately 1,500 miles of power lines through 2032.
Pasadena	Pasadena Water and Power reports removal of overhead electric, telephone, and cable lines from more than 49.5 miles of major arterial streets.
Beverly Hills	Reporting notes SCE has undergrounded substantial portions of its system, including the entire city of Beverly Hills.
Chino Hills	Chino Hills successfully fought for undergrounding of major transmission infrastructure tied to the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project.

Riverside should have been on that list.

Instead, we got excuses.

Housing Density Without Power Safety Is Reckless Planning

Riverside cannot honestly talk about high-density housing, state housing mandates, low-income housing projects, infill development, or Newsom-driven housing pressure without also talking about power safety and grid resilience.

If Sacramento wants cities to accept more density, then Sacramento, the CPUC, SCE, RCTC, and Riverside’s elected officials must be forced to answer a basic question:

How can Riverside responsibly add dense housing and more electrical load without redundant, reliable, fire-safe power infrastructure?

That should have been Riverside’s negotiating position from day one.

Not “please approve our project.”

Not “we are tired of debating.”

Not “the CPUC already decided.”

The answer to RCTC, SCE, and Sacramento should have been simple:

Riverside will not accept additional high-density housing obligations, regional transportation impacts, or state-driven growth pressure without safe, redundant, undergrounded electrical infrastructure in high-risk corridors.

That is what leadership looks like.

Instead, certain Council members appeared more afraid of difficult negotiations than of the long-term public safety consequences. They conceded to the project rather than standing firm for Riverside.

Junkets Are Not Leadership

We constantly hear about relationships, conferences, regional boards, League of California Cities events, committee assignments, and political networking.

Fine. Then use those relationships.

What is the value of all these costly political trips, regional alliances, photo opportunities, and organizational memberships if Riverside cannot leverage them to secure the same undergrounding and fire-hardening investments other California communities are receiving?

The job of a Council member is not to collect endorsements, attend conferences, and pose for social media. The job is to protect the people who employ them: the residents and taxpayers of Riverside.

If a Council member cannot stand up to SCE, RCTC, the CPUC, Sacramento, and Governor Newsom’s housing pressure, then that Council member is not leading. They are managing decline.

The Bain Fire Should End the Dismissive Rhetoric

The Bain Fire should put an end to the belittling rhetoric directed at residents who warned about river bottom fire risks.

Those residents were not being dramatic.

They were not anti-progress.

They were not anti-electric reliability.

They were asking for a smarter, safer, more modern project.

They understood what too many elected officials refused to admit:
infrastructure decisions last for generations, and bad infrastructure decisions become public safety problems.

The Council majority that pushed this project forward should be asked a direct question:

If the river bottom is difficult to access, dangerous to fight, and capable of producing fast-moving fires today, why did Riverside accept massive overhead transmission infrastructure through that same risk environment?

Riverside Deserves Adults in the Room

Today, residents are watching smoke in the sky. Families are watching evacuation maps. Firefighters are being placed in harm’s way. Property owners are wondering whether the wind will shift. And once again, Riverside is reminded that public safety is not a campaign slogan.

It is judgment.

It is preparation.

It is negotiation.

It is the willingness to tell powerful agencies, utilities, and political allies: No — not unless Riverside is protected.

The Bain Fire should be a wake-up call. The river bottom risk is real. The fire danger is real. The complexity of suppression is real. And the consequences of weak leadership are real.

Riverside did not need elected officials who surrendered to SCE, RCTC, and Sacramento pressure. Riverside needed leaders willing to fight for undergrounding, redundancy, safety, and long-term reliability.

As we look at the smoke over our community, remember this: the risk residents warned about was never imaginary. The failure was not the public speaking up.

The failure was a Council majority too weak to listen.