Portland General Electric on Monday pre-emptively cut power to about 5,000 customers in high-risk fire areas near Mount Hood in the first public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) to affect Oregon residents.

The utility began cutting service on Monday evening to prevent its equipment from sparking wildfires along a heavily forested portion of U.S. Route 26, stretching from Alder Creek to the high-elevation town of Government Camp, southeast of Portland.

“The proactive safety outage is a last resort to help protect people, property and the environment in the fact of extreme fire danger conditions and high winds forecast for the area,” PGE said in a statement.

PGE said it expected the distribution outages to last from 24 to 48 hours, “subject to repair times for any damage that may occur.”

The shutoffs coincided with a small wildfire that burned about 2 acres near the Mount Hood Meadows ski area on the south side of the mountain, shutting down nearby hiking trails. The cause of that blaze, which occurred away from any power lines, was still under investigation.

Mount Hood National Forest was shrouded in smoke Sept. 7 as high fire danger in the area prompted PGE to invoke Oregon’s first public safety power shutoffs. | © RTO Insider

On Monday, Mount Hood and its foothills were shrouded in a thick haze as high winds carried in smoke from larger fires burning to the east. With winds expected to gust as high as 65 mph, a red flag warning is in effect for the Mount Hood National Forest through Wednesday evening, indicating an increased danger of wildfire.

While PSPSes have become increasingly commonplace during California’s growing wildfire seasons, the practice is new to the Pacific Northwest.

“Even in historically wet, mild Oregon, summers are getting hotter and dryer with longer wildfire seasons, and the overall risk of wildfires is increasing,” PGE said.

The utility said it is taking other steps to prevent wildfires in its service territory, including increased vegetation management and inspection along its 12,000 miles of power lines and replacement and modification of equipment to reduce the risk of sparking fires.

PGE said it is also training crews in basic firefighting to learn “what to do if a fire ignites at their work scene” and “help prevent it from escalating to an even more dangerous situation.”

Portland-area Outages Top 100,000

Monday evening also saw more than 100,000 Portland-area customers of PGE and Pacific Power lose power as high winds with gusts as high as 55 mph snapped tree limbs and knocked down distribution lines throughout the region. An additional 15,000 PGE customers in Marion and Yamhill counties south of the metro area also lost service.

Even as PGE crews restored service to customers, the utility’s website showed outages continuing to climb throughout Monday night and into the early morning hours today.

The high winds are expected to persist throughout the region into midweek as a late-summer heat wave pushes temperatures into the mid-90s. Milder conditions are in the forecast for later in the week, according to the National Weather Service.