Electric utilities taking steps for wildfire prevention | News | kezi.com - KEZI TV

Electric utilities taking steps for wildfire prevention | News | kezi.com

EUGENE, Ore. – Sparks from power lines are a common cause of wildfires, especially in hot and dry conditions. Faced with this danger, power companies like Pacific Power and the Lane Electric Cooperative are taking steps to reduce the risk of starting a major fire.

Pacific Power says it’s investing nearly $500 million to reduce the risk of wildfires. That includes new advanced forecasting tools that help the company stay ahead of extreme weather. They said they are also rebuilding 2,000 miles of distribution lines over several years with covered wires and fire-resistant poles, as well as carrying out more frequent inspection of trees and other vegetation that can catch fire near power lines. Lorelei Phillips, a senior forester with Pacific Power, said there were certain criteria they looked for to identify what vegetation might be problematic.

“What we're looking for is trees that can encroach into the power lines,” Phillips said. “And also we're looking for dying, diseased, defective trees that could strike the powerlines.”

Pacific Power said they hired more employees to inspect high risk areas and trimmed more than 18,000 trees in 2022, making the lines, poles and entire system more resilient to wildfires, winter storms, wind and rain.

Lorelei Phillips has been a utility forester for 27 years. She helps coordinate inspections of power lines on foot and by helicopter.

“The environment is very very rugged. It's very very steep terrain, so being able to utilize a helicopter to fly this efficiently is a great way to look for dead trees on the edge of a right of way, and if you compare this to a foot patrol that might take a month... we can cover this power line in about half a day,” Phillips said.

Pacific Power said they conduct yearly inspections in areas that are at high risk of wildfires. They said they look at 30 years of historical data, including past fires, wind patterns and fuel sources to determine which areas need work.

Meanwhile, the Lane Electric Cooperative said a lot of customers who are evacuating from the Lookout and Bedrock Fires have asked if they need to shut off their power. Lane Electric said that if power equipment needs to be de-energized for the safety of the community or for that of first responders, then they will take that step without any action on the part of customers.

Lane Electric said they’re monitoring the Bedrock and Lookout Fires, and they have servicemen stationed in both areas so they can respond quickly to any outages or firefighter needs. Although Lane Electric has not yet declared a public safety power shutoff for either fire, they are operating in wildfire settings, which means outages are more likely to occur.