How Xcel Energy is scaling sustainably

with Watch Duty

When a fire hits, utilities like Xcel Energy need to cross-coordinate between field and operational teams to identify the scope and severity of the incident.

Since January 2026, Xcel Energy monitored 1,000+ actionable wildfire-related alerts across their service territories - approximately 38% were first identified through Watch Duty.

With Watch Duty, Xcel Energy reported saving 15 to 30 minutes of valuable time during the critical first hour of an event.

Founded

2000

States In Service Territory

Electricity REach

3.8 M

Natural gas REach

2.2 M

Greg Vento
Wildfire Command Center Sr Manager, Xcel Energy

“We rely on Watch Duty updates to monitor fire growth, containment progress, evacuation activity, and other indicators that suggest whether suppression efforts are succeeding or conditions are deteriorating.”

Improved Incident Coordination

Prior to Watch Duty, Xcel Energy teams relied on a patchwork combination of tools across 12+ screens. This unconsolidated network was prone to delays or revisions, originating from upstream reporting sources. For example, incidents may be entered into systems such as NIFC or WILDCAD hours after initial discovery and then appear as newly published updates.Watch Duty has consolidated that information into a single platform

Watch Duty provided operational workflow change without disruption.

Now, Xcel Energy’s Wildfire Command Center (WCC) directs Watch Duty’s curated and validated wildfire intelligence credible incidents to teams, reducing operational noise across every chain of command.

Silhouettes of four firefighters walking inside a fire station toward the open door at sunset.

At Xcel Energy, field personnel use Watch Duty to maintain situational awareness of active incidents that may affect operational activities, restoration efforts, inspections, or emergency response operations.
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Crews use Watch Duty to understand fire locations, road closures, evacuation areas, and incident developments, enabling safer and more informed decision making in the field.

Chance Hutson
Wildfire Investigations Sr Manager, Xcel Energy

“Even modest improvements in response speed, resource deployment, and situational awareness can provide meaningful operational benefits during high-consequence events. For this reason, Watch Duty has become an important component of our wildfire situational awareness toolkit.”

Dark map with faint street lines and a green circular area highlighted in the lower right section.

Tailored GIS integrations from Day 1

We worked with Xcel Energy to ingest substations, conductor center lines, overhead lines, and wildfire risk tiers into Watch Duty, turning our platform from a fire tracker into a utility-specific common operating picture. These GIS integrations negated the need for internal GIS buildout, saving Xcel Energy time and money during a busy fire season.

Learn More About How We Integrate Data

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