NV Energy shuts off power to Mt. Charleston to reduce wildfire risk

As high winds moved into the Mount Charleston area, NV Energy shut off power to all Mt. Charleston neighborhoods on Sunday in an effort to prevent its equipment from sparking a wildfire.

“There’s always a risk of fire in the area, but we as a company certainly do not want to put our customers at risk of our infrastructure and our equipment agitating the potential of a fire,” said Jonathan Frissora, NV Energy’s director of grid operations.

Frissora was at the resort on Mount Charleston on Sunday after the company de-energized the area. He said customers were notified and that the company had staff on site to provide information and assistance.

“We have water, we have snacks that they can indulge in, we’re here to have a conversation and keep the community abreast as to what is going on,” Frissora said.

The shutoff was described as the first Public Safety Outage Management event, or PSOM, of the season. Frissora said NV Energy relies on its meteorologists to determine when unique wind conditions could affect the area. In cases like this weekend, he said, company leadership establishes an incident management team.

“Everybody has a strategic role. We all come together, we’ll have our calls, we’ll talk logistics, we’ll talk about what’s happening and what the meteorology team sees,” Frissora said.

NV Energy said the southwesterly nature of the winds could create a downslope wind storm, increasing the likelihood of damage to equipment and raising the chance of a spark.

“When you have an electrical component, it contributes to that electrical fire, which will spread rapidly if we don’t deenergize,” Frissora said.

Frissora said the company is mindful of how power shutoffs can affect residents. He said NV Energy’s Green Cross program is designed to help customers with medical needs during a PSOM event.

“If we do a PSOM event as we’ve done here, we will have our team abstract those customers who are classified as Green Cross, and that tells us these customers have a medical need, whether it’s a medical device of some sort, and we will put them up at a hotel at no cost to them,” he said.

NV Energy crews are expected to begin checking the status of equipment at 6 a.m. Monday and hope to restore power to the area by 9 a.m. Monday.