HELENA — With extreme fire conditions expected in Montana this week, leaders with NorthWestern Energy announced they were looking at the possibility of preemptively turning off power in some areas to reduce the wildfire risk. While they said Wednesday it appears they won’t need to conduct a “public safety power shutoff” this time, it’s a tool they’ll continue to consider.
This was the first time the utility formally informed customers that they were monitoring for a public safety power shutoff, and the announcement drew a lot of attention across the state.
Jason Merkel, NorthWestern’s vice president of distribution, said leaders want to make clear a shutoff is something they’ll use only in the most severe situations.
“It's the last defense of many other strategies that we employ prior to a power shutoff,” he said.
Merkel said the idea of turning off power to defend against wildfires isn’t new, and NorthWestern has done it before. He said what’s new here is that they have formalized the decision process, to help employees be more effective in implementing it and give the public a better understanding.
If forecasts call for dangerous fire weather – high temperatures, low humidity and especially heavy winds – NorthWestern will begin by going into the “monitoring” stage, several days in advance. The company will then keep updating their models as the potential shutoff time approaches. If they decide to move forward with a shutoff, they’ll inform customers in advance, by phone or email.
Power lines have been linked to several disastrous fires in recent years, including the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, and last year’s fire in Lahaina, Hawaii. More electrical utilities across the West have reported using planned shutoffs as a way to prevent downed lines sparking a wildfire.
NorthWestern has said a high-wind event affecting one of their lines was apparently what led to the 2021 West Wind Fire that devastated the town of Denton, Montana.
“We're very focused on preventing that ignition – that’s not to say we're going to prevent all ignitions – we want to prevent that ignition that under the right weather conditions could end in one of those tragic events,” said Merkel.
Merkel said the West Wind Fire was not the main reason NorthWestern looked at updating its policies on power shutoffs, though they did have it in mind. He said they also have been considering the longer fire seasons Montana has experienced.
NorthWestern said a power shutoff would be focused on a specific area, and they’d be more likely in forested areas or on the outskirts of communities, where development runs into the “wildland-urban interface.”
“The least likely place to have a Public Safety Power Shutoff is in a populated, urban area,” NorthWestern said in a customer bill insert earlier this month.
The company has already sent out letters to about 30,000 customers who they believe are in areas at higher risk for a shutoff. That’s less than 10% of the customers they provide electrical service for.
One of the customers who received that notification was Sean Logan, a Helena city commissioner and retired chief of the Helena Fire Department.
“To me, it seems just a natural thing that NorthWestern Energy would come up with a policy like this,” he said.
Logan said NorthWestern has been talking to local governments about this policy. He said he sees the attention it’s gotten as a good reminder for the public.
“I've watched quite a few wildland fire seasons, and one of the things that's kind of frustrating is that people tend to be complacent until the smoke's in the air and until the wildfire activity is high – then they sort of get excited,” he said. “Our wildfire seasons happen annually; it's a good wakeup call, certainly, to understand that you should be prepared well ahead of the season.”
NorthWestern said one important step customers can take is to contact them and make sure they have your correct phone number and email address on file. That way, if there is an emergency situation, the company can reach you.
Merkel noted that NorthWestern is taking many more steps to address fire risk besides considering shutoffs. For example, their electric lines have automatic devices that activate when a line is down. Under normal circumstances, the devices are set to prioritize restoring service, but when wildfire risk is high, they are adjusted to focus on preventing ignitions.
NorthWestern also started installing smoke detection field cameras across their system this week. The cameras are intended to provide early detection for wildfires, and to help alert firefighters as soon as possible.
