Wyoming HB0192 makes a denied right-of-way a utility’s wildfire defence
Wyoming HB0192 makes a denied right-of-way a utility’s wildfire defence
2026-09-19 · Wyoming · Legislation
What happened. Wyoming enacted a wildfire mitigation and liability framework for electric utilities in 2025. Two of its provisions reach community associations directly: an approved mitigation plan overrides conflicting local land use rules, and a landowner’s denial of right-of-way access becomes a defence the utility can raise in a wildfire damages claim.
The act
HB0192, House Enrolled Act No. 58, became chapter 119 of the 2025 session laws. Governor Gordon signed it on March 6, 2025; it took effect July 1, 2025, with sections 3 and 4 effective immediately. It passed the House 52–8 and the Senate 29–0. Sponsors were Representatives E. Campbell, Lawley, Thayer and Wylie, and Senators Barlow, Dockstader, Jones and Schuler. It creates W.S. §§ 37-3-401 through 37-3-405.1
The preemption clause
W.S. § 37-3-402(b): “Wildfire mitigation plans approved by the commission shall preempt any part of a local land use plan or ordinance that would impede or preclude an electric utility from implementing the wildfire mitigation plan.”
The preemption runs to local land use plans and ordinances. A recorded declaration of covenants is neither, so the clause does not on its face displace a community’s own landscaping or screening standards. What it does is remove the county or municipal rules an association might otherwise have expected to constrain vegetation work near lines.
The access defence
W.S. § 37-3-405(c)(i): “… For purposes of this paragraph, an electric utility shall be deemed to have substantially complied with the wildfire mitigation plan if the electric utility attempted in good faith to comply with the plan but was denied or unreasonably delayed access to a right-of-way after the electric utility requested access to the right-of-way to perform vegetation management or fire mitigation work in accordance with the plan and the denial or delay was a proximate cause of the damages to the plaintiff. A denial or delay shall not be deemed a proximate cause of the damages unless the electric utility made reasonable efforts to enforce their easement access rights within a reasonable time”.
A homeowners association that controls a gated road, a locked utility corridor or common-area vegetation is precisely the kind of party capable of denying or delaying such access.
The rest of the liability architecture
Section 37-3-405 rewrites how a wildfire damages claim against a Wyoming electric utility runs:
- Subsection (a) creates “a presumption in any civil action that the approved wildfire mitigation plan is a reasonable and prudent preparation for, and mitigation of, wildfire risk.”
- Subsection (b) requires good-faith pre-suit negotiation, with a 90-day window for the utility to respond.
- Subsection (c) permits recovery of economic loss only on proof, by a preponderance, of failure to substantially comply with the approved plan, or of gross negligence, malice or criminal intent.
- Subsection (d) sets a four-year limitations period from ignition and bars non-economic damages unless the claim is based on injury or death.
Section 2 of the act provides that nothing in it “shall be construed to impair, alter or preempt any terms or agreements in grants of easements.” Where a recorded easement sets out the utility’s access rights, that document still governs the access itself.
Associations are not on the notice list
Section 37-3-403(b) requires a utility filing a plan to give direct notice to “all conservation districts, municipalities and counties.” Homeowners associations, condominium associations and improvement and service districts are not named. Section 37-3-403(a)(x) requires the plan to describe community outreach “particularly in areas impacted by wildfires or de-energizations” — a content requirement for the plan, not a notice duty owed to any association.
So a Wyoming association learns what an approved plan requires of the ground it owns by reading the plan at the Public Service Commission, not by being told.
How it interacts with the 2026 easement statute
A year later the Legislature passed SF0099, chapter 102 of the 2026 session laws, creating W.S. § 34-1-159 — a statutory easement, up to 30 feet in any direction, wherever an undocumented electric line installed on or before January 1, 2006 crosses private land, carrying an express right “to trim and remove trees and other vegetation that is hazardous or that is reasonably likely to become hazardous” to the system.
The two acts answer different halves of the same question. The 2026 act supplies the access right where no written easement exists. The 2025 act supplies the consequence of refusing access where one does. Together they describe a legal position in which a Wyoming association’s control over vegetation near an overhead line is considerably narrower than the common-area deed alone would suggest.
The wildfire context
The 2024 Wyoming fire season is why this statute exists. State Forester Kelly Norris put the scale plainly: “Having over 810,000 acres burned in Wyoming is massive.” It was the second-worst season in state history behind 1988, and at least 75% of the acreage burned on private and state land — the inverse of a normal Wyoming year, and the share that carries insured structures. The House Draw Fire in Johnson County reached 174,691 acres, the largest ever recorded within Wyoming’s borders. The Elk Fire in Sheridan County burned 96,197 acres and destroyed two primary residences in the Horseshoe Subdivision west of Dayton.3
The same session funded recovery — SF0152 “Wildfire management-amendments,” chapter 129, and SF0195 on emergency bridge loans — and did nothing about homeowners insurance availability. Wyoming has no FAIR plan.
Related Wyoming HOA Topics
- HB0192 (2025), House Enrolled Act No. 58, ch. 119 — enrolled act creating W.S. §§ 37-3-401 to 37-3-405 ↩
- SF0099 (2026), Senate Enrolled Act No. 63, ch. 102 — statutory electric easement, W.S. § 34-1-159 ↩
- Mike Koshmrl, “Wyoming's massive 2024 wildfire season second only to infamous ’88,” WyoFile, Nov. 4, 2024 (quoting State Forester Kelly Norris) ↩
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