Rocky Mountain Power is implementing some changes in areas identified as at higher risk for wildfire. “We have been working for the past couple of months patrolling certain circuits and replacing and repairing equipment to harden these circuits to reduce the likelihood of a spark in the event of a fault in an effort to reduce the potential of a wildfire,” shares Vernal Operations Manager Brandon Anderson. “We also have programmed certain devices with special settings designed to eliminate re-energizing of lines. This is very specific and limited to just the areas we have identified as a higher risk for wildfire.” Anderson emphasized that this will not affect the majority of Rocky Mountain Power customers. For those customers in areas of higher risk, however, such as communication towers located on the mountain, there will be longer outages as Rocky Mountain Power will be patrolling the entire line under fire settings before the line is re-energized. Anderson gives the example of a tree branch within an area identified as at higher risk of wildfire touching the line for a second during a windstorm. Where before this resulted in just a momentary “blink” and the power would come back on, now that touch from the branch will lock out the line and cause an outage rather than just a blink. For customers in these high risk areas, this change could have serious effects on normal operation.
