Oregon utilities cut power amid winds, fearing fire
PORTLAND, ORE. » Oregon utilities shut down power to tens of thousands of customers Friday as dry easterly winds swept into the region, in the hopes that it would lessen the risk of wildfires in extremely dry and hot conditions.
Power shutoffs due to extreme fire weather, common in California, are relatively new to the Pacific Northwest. The plans, which were part of permanent rules approved in May to manage wildfire danger in high-risk areas, mark the new reality in a region better known for its wet weather and temperate rainforests.
Portland General Electric halted power to about 30,000 customers in 12 service areas — including the posh West Hills neighborhood of Portland — and Pacific Power shut down service to more than 7,000 customers in a small community on the Pacific Coast, where a wildfire burned two years ago, and in pockets southeast of the state capital of Salem.
All told, more than 40,000 customers could lose power by late Friday in planned shutoffs as winds of up to 60 mph hit and temperatures hovered in the high 80s and low 90s.
Schools in the areas with planned power outages canceled classes and authorities urged residents to charge cellphones and be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice.
Climate change is bringing drier conditions to the Pacific Northwest and that requires strategies that have been common in fireprone California for the past decade or more, said Erica Fleishman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University.
Wind patterns haven't
Homes destroyed by the Almeda fire at Bear Lake Estates in Phoenix, Ore., in September 2020 are shown.
changed, but those winds are now coinciding more frequently with drier vegetation and hotter temperatures — a toxic mix for fire ignition, rapid spread and extreme fire behavior, she said.
“I don't know whether this is the solution, but it's an interim effort to manage wildfire risk,” Fleishman said. “People are going, `Oh my gosh!' The areas we thought were safe, they're realizing those are not immune to fire anymore. The fire likelihood is changing.”
The proactive power shutoffs were just the second for Portland General Electric ever. The utility shut down power to 5,000 customers in 2020 near Mount Hood during firestorms that ravaged the state. Extreme winds over Labor Day weekend led to wildfires that burned more than 1 million acres, destroyed 4,000 homes and killed at least 11 people — and utilities were blamed for some of those fire starts.
Pacific Power, another major utility in Oregon, said if it shuts off power to customers in six counties later Friday, as anticipated, it will be first time the company
has done so since putting a wildfire mitigation plan in place in Oregon in 2018.
The utility was sued last year by residents in two towns that burned to ashes in the 2020 wildfires who blamed the company for not shutting down power in advance of the devastating wind storm.
Pacific Power has since hired a team of meteorologists to make fire weather forecasts and is spending more than $500 million to “harden” its electric grid in high-risk areas by replacing wooden poles with carbonized ones and encasing power lines and conductor boxes to reduce the chances of a spark, said Drew Hanson, a Pacific Power spokesman.
“You can look at the West in general and climate change has impacted areas from Southern California, and then Northern California and now up into this region as well, we're seeing those same conditions,” he said.
“It's something we are taking very seriously. We realize the changing landscape. We've been changing and evolving along with it.”