Chelan PUD engages community on outage plans to prevent wildfires

LEAVENWORTH – Chelan County PUD held three open house events in Entiat, Wenatchee, and Leavenworth to educate the public on its Fire Safety Outage Management, which is also referred to as a public safety power shutoff (PSPS).

“This is a great opportunity for us to listen to folks about particular concerns…So it's a way for us to learn,” said Chelan PUD Commissioner Steve McKenna.

A PSPS is a proactive measure in which the PUD implements power outages during high winds and dry conditions, in order to prevent wildfires ignited by utility infrastructure. The last resort measure is reserved for when the right conditions would create unstoppable fires that escape initial attack, such as the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California.

According to Chelan PUD Senior Communications Strategist Rachel Hansen, the PUD monitors a dashboard of data points such as wind speed, dryness of fuels, estimated flame length and speed of travel in the event of a fire, over a 10-day forecast. PUD monitors rural areas with the highest risk of wildfire for a potential PSPS, which spans about 14,000 PUD customers. 

“We're going on our fourth year of having fire safety outages. We started it in the Lake Wenatchee area in 2021. We know that every year we do get 40 mile an hour winds on different days. But so far, it's never been dry enough. The fire potential just hasn't been so high that we'd actually have to use it. So we've never actually had a fire safety outage, we're just prepared to do so,” said Hansen.

If the right conditions are forecasted, PUD would warn affected areas of a targeted outage 48 hours in advance. Power would be shut off until the end of the weather event, affected infrastructure would be inspected and repaired if necessary, then power would be restored.

“It's not a blanket shutdown, but it's really monitoring where the problem areas are, cutting those settings, rediverting electricity as much as we can, and then monitoring,” said McKenna.

To stay up to date with potential outages, Chelan PUD recommends updating contact information and signing up for Everbridge notifications through Chelan County Emergency Management. Those in need of electricity for medical equipment can sign up for the Electrical Medical Needs Registry at chelanpud.org/medform.

When notified of an outage, Chelan PUD customers should charge their phones, and stock up with at least three days-supply of water, especially if using a well, non-perishable food, gas for their car, and medications. Important things to consider include knowing how to manually open a garage door, safely operating a generator (unsafe use could put PUD workers at risk), keeping refrigerators and freezers closed as much as possible, and unplugging sensitive electronic equipment.

Taylor Caldwell: 509-433-7276 or taylor@ward.media