At an April 27 joint work session, the Pagosa Springs Town Council and Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) discussed potential fire danger and La Plata Electric Association’s (LPEA’s) newly implemented plan for public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) in the event of forecasted fire danger.
Archuleta County Sheriff Mike Le Roux was on hand to update the two governmental bodies about the outlook for the summer.
Le Roux said that the current moisture the area has received is definitely welcomed, but that “everything we are seeing is looking like it will be an exceptionally active fire season.”
He said that the county’s emergency operations “is looking to be active and aggressive about early detection” of any new fires, and that the sheriff’s office relies on the public to call in fires early.
“Call early and call often,” he said, adding that “all big fires started as small fires,” and that the earlier crews can get on suppressing a fire, the better the outcome is for keeping it under control.
Commissioner Warren Brown asked Le Roux if “it was necessary” to go in successive stages up to Stage 3 restrictions, “or could we just go straight to a Stage 3 or from a Stage 1 to a Stage 3 and skip Stage 2?”
Le Roux answered that “we don’t want to be too restrictive on that,” adding, “hopefully, we don’t have to go into Stage 3 at all, where we have to shut the forest down.”
He explained that it is mainly a “play it by ear” kind of situation.
It’s possible that we won’t even have to go into fire restrictions, he noted, indicating he’s holding out hope that the area sees moisture with an active monsoon this summer.
Mayor Shari Pierce expressed that she wants to make sure that people understand the fire permitting process, with Le Roux adding that the ordinance on fire permits goes back to 2017 and the county has done its best to educate residents on the process of burning legally under the ordinance.
He said the ordinance “stipulates the rules on what they can and cannot do,” and that the penalties range from a $600 fine to fourth-degree arson for violating the ordinance.
Jerry Sutherlin, LPEA’s vice president of distribution operations, was also at the meeting to inform the two bodies of LPEA’s new power shutoff safety policy.
Sutherlin explained that he wanted to inform the community about “this process that is coming” this fire season.
He added that LPEA has the right to “de-energize power at any time for public safety reasons,” especially during high fire risk.
He explained that LPEA manages about 2,000 miles of overhead electric lines across five counties, and that a tree falling on one of these lines during a high wind event is the “biggest fire risk” facing the community.
He noted that LPEA would be using state-of-the-art forecasting models to predict high-risk events with near certainty, adding that within 48 hours of a high-risk event the forecasting model is correct 98 percent of the time.
He said that when LPEA sees red flag conditions on the horizon it can start planning days out for shutting down power in high-risk areas and plan for getting the power back on as soon as possible.
“The last thing we want to do is start a fire,” he said, citing other examples of electric power providers inadvertently starting fires.
He said that LPEA would work to notify all of its affected customers in advance so folks could prepare for potential outages, and that LPEA would also be working with local agencies to get the message out.
“We are trying to cut down on panic as much as possible, trying to get people informed so they don’t panic,” he said.
Commissioner Veronica Medina expressed frustration with LPEA, saying “we should have had more of a heads up about this.”
“We are definitely not prepared,” she said, “and with our aging community it makes it very difficult” to get communications out.
Pierce asked how often LPEA anticipates that it will have to implement PSPS.
Sutherlin responded that, on average, it would most likely be implemented about once per year.
Council member Brooks Lindner questioned if LPEA should more aggressively be looking at underground power lines.
Sutherlin explained that they are “looking hard” at doing as many underground lines as possible, but that it is about 20 to 50 times the cost.
He added that LPEA considers underground lines “with every new project,” and that about 50 percent of their lines are already underground.
On the issue of PSPS, Pierce ended by saying, “we have a lot of planning to do on our end” to get ready.
For more on LPEA’s strategies for fire season, see the article “La Plata Electric Association outlines safety strategies this fire season” in the April 23 issue of The SUN or on www.PagosaSUN.com.
derek@pagosasun.com
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